San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-01-17
SUNDAY, JANUARY Il, 1897.
CHEAPEST THING ON EARTH.


cheap things. Money will buy more
now than ever before. The labor
saving appliances of the industrial
world are marvelously multiplied.
What it took our ancestors year TO
accomplish is now accomplished in Il
day One hour of the present produces
what it formerly took days to bring
forth. The world moves faster. lives
faster, works faster, decays faster
and dies faster. This is the age of
veneer, hardly that sometimes, only
yarnish. The lost arts are being re-
discovered. The art of making new
things look old and of making old
things appear new, is well mastered.
Out of the stream labatorieS of the
present are turned out at an hours
notice, to order, the works of the old
est masters.
You cannot tell from the appearance
of a piece of furniture or pottery or
jewelry whether it is the work of this
year, of this age, or that of thous-
and years ago. You know what age
it represents, but not when it was
made. The art of limitation is car
ried TO perfection. All you need is
to give your order and you get it. To
wealth all things are possible, and to
the poverty that apes wealth the i'm
imitation is possible. 1t costs little to
make and is sold cheap. One steel 81
ant now does the work of hundred
human arms. Does it easier, quicker.
more perfectly. The hundred things
are made now where the one was
made hundred years ago. This
cheapeas all things that are offered
in the markets of the world.
Steel is harder than flesh. 1t lasts
longer. 1t began as the servant of Ia
Dor and is now the master of the Ia
borer. Flesh and blood are at a dis
count Human hands are not wanted
in a thousand channels of labor where
a half century ago they were indis-
pensible. Flesh and blood breed and
children eat. Iron hands and steel
sinnews and brass claws do not eat.
They wear out slowly, but they wear
andw hen they are worn it costs
money TO supply them. Not so with
flesh and blood. That is always ready
to step into the breach of life. When
one man is worn out there are a score
to take his place. No account is
made of human life in the workshop
! of the world. Mines are dug and ores
earth by the agony of labor, that is
not counted worth the reckoning in
1.-THE sum of consideration.
Human life is cheap. When the
worn muscles are no longer able
accomplish their task the task
given to another What matter
lat half score of lives are Deepen
ut upon that labor. Let labor take
e of that. The work of the world
1t 90 on, and the falling of one
more or less by the wayside
is too much of it in the market,
he cheapest thing on earth. 1t
most recklessly squandered.
not have to go to Cuba or the
lids of the destructive ages to
out. You do not need to hunt
in the mines where avarice
kliyes of men and children in
gold and silver and coal and
rom You find 1t on every highway
of traffic as vol.
Human life is cheap. Cheap in its
own estimation. This is the worst of
it. 1t is not only a cheap thing in the
eyes of the employer who coins mon
ely out of it, but in the eyes of itself.
Nothing is so recklessly squandered.
Nothing so cruelty starved. Nothing
so fearfully abused. Nothing of which
so little account is taken. 1t is not
only drowned out in floods. smother
ed in mines, roasted in furnaces,
smashed up in collisions. shot out in
battle. and dynamited in riots but it
is burned out by poisoned liquors.
corrupted by villainOus foods. smoked
out at the end of cigarette chOked
out in poisonous chambers. smother
ed in dirt and fOulness. There seems
to be devilish ingenuity in devising
fresh ways TO make way with life
Life is cheap 1t is so held on the
'SA1ssst5aii ground. in the pugilist ring.
in the cowboys frolicks. in the expos
ures OF fashion. in the adventures of
the explorers. 1t is put in pawn for
the topmost crag of the mountain
height. for the greatest number of
turns at the skipping rope, for the
goal on the gridirOn, for the homeplate
on the diamond. for the scratch at the
regatta, for the most oysters by the
gluttOn, the most beer by the bibulOus
the head of the form by the scholar
the winning hand by the gambler Il
is the cheapest thing on earth. This
because it is too common. There are