The So-called Human Race

Our method: We select only things that interest us, assuming that other people will be interested; if they are not – why, chacun à son goût, as the cannibal king remarked, adding a little salt. We printed “The Spires of Oxford” a long time ago because it interested us exceedingly.

A valued colleague quotes the emotional line —

“This is my own, my native land!” —

as palliation, if not justification, for the “simple, homely, and comprehensive adjuration, ‘Own Your Own Home.’” We acknowledge the homeliness and comprehensiveness, but we deny the value of poetic testimony. Said Dr. Johnson:

“Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru,”

which, De Quincey or Tennyson declared, should have run: “Let observation with extended observation observe mankind extensively.” Poets and tautology go walking like the Walrus and the Carpenter.

BOLSHEVISM OF LONG AGO

“A radical heaven is a place where every man does what he pleases, and there is a general division of property every Saturday night.” – George S. Hillard (1853).

LULLABY

In Woodman, Wis., the Hotel Lull
Is where a man may rest his skull.
All care and fret is void and null
When one puts up at Hotel Lull.
Ah, might I wing it as a gull
Unto the mansion kept by Lull —
By W. K. Lull, the w. k. Lull,
Who greets the guests at Hotel Lull.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” But if, miraculously, it happens in Chicago, it can, despite the poet’s word, “pass into nothingness.” The old Field Museum, seen beneath a summer moon, when the mist is on the lake, is as beautiful as anything on the earth’s crust. Not to preserve the exterior were a sin against Beauty, which is the unforgivable sin.

“LEMME UP, DARLING! LEMME UP!”

[From the Detroit Free Press.]

My advertisement of Feb. 24 was error. I will be responsible for my wife’s debts. Leo Tyo.

“I’ll make the Line some day or jump into Great Salt Lake,” warns C. W. O. Pick out a soft spot, friend. We jumped into it one day and sprained an ankle.

Alice in Cartoonland

I

“Hello!” said the Hatter. “I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

“No,” said Alice; “I’ve been all over – in Wonderland, in Bookland, in Stageland, and forty other lands. People must be tired of my adventures. Where am I now? I never know.”

“In Cartoonland,” said the Hatter.

“And what are you doing here?” inquired Alice.

“I’m searching for an original cartoon idea,” replied the Hatter. “Would you like to come along?”

“Ever so much,” said Alice.

“The first thing we have to do is to get across that chasm,” said the Hatter, pointing.

Alice saw a huge legend on the far wall of the chasm, and spelled it out – “O-b-l-i-v-i-o-n.”

“Yes, Oblivion,” said the Hatter. “That’s where they dump defeated candidates and other undesirables. Come on, we can cross a little below here.”

He indicated a thin plank that lay across the Chasm of Oblivion.

“Will it hold us?” said Alice.

“It has held the G. O. P. Elephant and the Democratic Donkey, and all sorts of people and things. Let’s hurry over, as here comes the Elephant now, with Mr. Taft riding it, and the plank might give way.”

II

“By the way,” said the Hatter, “here is my hat store.”

There were only two kinds in the window – square paper caps and high silk hats. Alice had never seen paper caps before.

“They’re worn by the laboring man,” said the Hatter; “but you never see them outside of Cartoonland. The plug hats are for Capitalists. I also keep whiskers; siders for Capital and ordinary for Labor.”

“O, there’s a railroad train!” said Alice, suddenly.

“No use taking that train,” said the Hatter; “it doesn’t go. Did you ever see an engine like that outside Cartoonland? And even if it did work we shouldn’t get very far, as the rock Obstruction is always on the track.”

“I’d just as soon walk,” said Alice.

III

“Mercy! there’s a giant!” exclaimed Alice.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said the Hatter; “he’s perfectly good natured.”

“What an awful-looking creature!” said Alice.

“He’s awfully out of drawing,” said the Hatter, critically; “but, then, almost everything in Cartoonland is. It’s the idea that counts.”

“You said you were searching for an original idea,” Alice reminded him.

“But I don’t expect to find one,” the Hatter replied. “You see, it wouldn’t be any use; nobody would understand it. People like the old familiar things, you know.”

“Still, we might happen on one,” said Alice. “Let’s walk along.”

IV

Suddenly a door opened, and a great quantity of rubbish was swept briskly into the street.