'Arry, 'Arry Smith de Smith,
You whirl and whisk about the lands.
With shoulders bowed, with lowered pate,
And dull eyes fixed upon your hands.
Oh! take some interest in the scene,
Love birds that sing and flowers that blow;
Try not to be a mere machine,
And let the record-squelcher go!
A little less than M'Kinley, but more than Unkind.—President Cleveland has had to allow the Gorman Act to become law without formally assenting to it. He has had, in fact, to swallow what he would fain reject, an act of involuntary political Gormandising which must be unpleasant.
THAT ADVANCED WOMAN!
(A Symposium à la Mode.)
The Author of "A Saddis Aster" confesses.
I am much flattered by your kind invitation to discuss the Advanced Woman, but an initial difficulty suggests itself to me. Can one discuss the Advanced Woman if this Advanced Woman herself is non-existent? I am aware, of course, that she has stridden large of late in the pages of feminine fiction, but is she not as extinct (before she has ever existed) as her Dodo title? Let me make my own confession. I have used, if I did not invent, the A. W. I have secured a remunerative public. Once on a time I wrote of life as I found it. I used my eyes and ears, and endeavoured to let the world have the result in the old-fashioned, wholesome story. It was a dreary failure. The critics commended my style, and the public let me severely alone. Nous avons changé tout cela. A theatrical manager who finds his musical piece begin to drag, saves the situation by a New Edition—in other words, by two new songs and some fresh dances. In a similar way I secured a reputation by dragging in (at times by her very heel) the Advanced Woman. True that she resembles no one in actual existence, true, indeed, that she is outrageously and offensively improbable, but the public were not happy till they got her. They're happy now. So am I.
Mrs. Shriek Shriekon speaks out.