“APRES MOI LE DELUGE!” Mrs. Bradley-Martin’s sartorial kings and pseudo-queens, her dukes and DuBarrys, princes and Pompadours, have strutted their brief hour upon the mimic stage, disappearing at daybreak like foul night-birds or an unclean dream–have come and gone like the rank eructation of some crapulous Sodom, a malodor from the cloacae of ancient capitals, […]

AND CALLS ON THE ICONOCLAST. The editor was reading a report of the regular meeting of the Dallas Pastors’ Association, at which the Second Coming of Christ was learnedly considered. Dr. Seasholes declared that all good people will rise into the air, like so many larks, to meet the Lord and conduct him to earth–with […]

Now that the clarion voice of the reformer is heard in the land, demanding for woman all the rights and privileges enjoyed by the sterner sex, perhaps it would be well to ask the fair client to come into court and establish that “natural equality” so vigorously claimed for her, as well as the fact, […]

THE PLUTOCRAT AND THE PAUPER “For Christ’s sake, Cap, give me the price of a sandwich!” I stopped and surveyed the speaker, not because the request was unusual, but because the applicant for aid had not acquired the beggar’s whine. He was a large, powerful man, evidently a mechanic, for every trade leaves its peculiar […]

AMERICAN TOADYISM ON TAP. With more barbaric mummery, flummery and vulgar waste of wealth than characterized even the late Marlborough- Vanderbilt wedding, Nicholas Two-Eyes was crowned Emperor of the rag-tag and bob-tail of creation, officially known as “all the Russias.” Nick has a nice easy job at a salary considerably in excess of ye average […]

The mortal remains of Jefferson Davis, for four eventful years president of the Southern Confederacy, are now en route to their last resting place in Hollywood cemetery in the city of Richmond. New Orleans, the metropolis of the sunny south-land, surrenders, with sighs and tears, the dust of the distinguished dead to the keeping of […]

A charming little lady, the front elevation of whose name is Stella, takes pen in hand and gives the Icon. a red-hot “roast” for having intimated that Platonic Love, so-called, is a pretty good thing for respectable women to let alone. Judged by the amount of caloric she generates, Stella must be a star of […]

Philadelphia’s school board has barred Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” from the list of books to be used in the high school in the teaching of French, as a book not fit for girls. What would not one give for a diagram of the heads of these educators? It must be a nasty mind which can […]

I have received a letter from Tyler, Texas, propounding the following fateful conundrum: “Can Woman Hypnotize Man?” My correspondent adds that “by answering, the ICONOCLAST will confer a favor on the people of Tyler, decide a bet and settle a vexatious question.” The affirmative scoops the stakes–wins dead easy, and world without end. The man […]

Perhaps a religious periodical like the ICONOCLAST should avoid a question of such delicacy, should leave it to the medical magazines, which may speak as plainly as they please, even in the presence of the proverbial “young person”–now deep in the study of physiology and even essaying the practice of therapeutics. My quarrel, however, is […]

When it comes to “Looking Backward,” Bellamy isn’t in it a little bit with Prof. Herman V. Hilprecht. The retrospective glance of the latter covers a period of at least 11,000 years; and what is of infinitely more importance, it is that of a learned paleologist instead of a sensation-mongering empiric. The Professor has succeeded […]

Are you throwing stones at Christ and the Christian Cause? Pause, reflect before you answer. Not all the stones are thrown by the Atheist, the Agnostic, the Infidel. No, the most cruel stones, the ones that wound most deeply, are thrown from the pulpit itself. The kiss of Judas strikes deeper than the spear of […]

Mr. Gladstone and Prof. Huxley have been warmly debating the story of the swine, the devil and the deep sea. What an occupation for two of the master spirits of the age! Is it any wonder that young men, contemplating such polemics, should turn away from revealed religion altogether? Fortunately the religious world is no […]

A WORSHIP FOR THE WORLD. “Church Unification” has long been the dream of many earnest souls, who regret to see the various denominations wasting energy warring upon each other that should be brought to bear on the legions of Lucifer; but even the most sanguine must admit there is little prospect of their dreams becoming […]

One of the cardinal faults of the American character is a propensity to brag. Brother Jonathan’s egotism long since passed into a proverb. In no section of this land of the alleged free and home of the ism does the blowhard blow longer and louder than in the South. We are the people, the nonpareil; […]

I note that a Britisher named Prof. Bridger has been infringing my copyright by proclaiming, as an original discovery, that kissing is an excellent tonic and will cure dyspepsia. When the o’erbusy bacteriologists first announced that osculation was a dangerous pastime, that divers and sundry varieties of bacteria hopped blithely back and forth engendering disease […]

That man who first coined the phrase, “Nothing succeeds like success,” had a great head. Talmage is emphatically a success,–viewed from a worldly point of view. He attracts the largest audiences of any American preacher; his sermons are more extensively printed, more eagerly read than those of any other divine. He is regarded by the […]

CHASTITY GOING OUT OF FASHION. By the “social evil” is commonly understood illicit intercourse of the sexes, a violation of law or custom intended to regulate the procreative passion. The “evil” is probably as old as society, coeval with mankind. History–tradition itself–goes not back to a time when statutes, confessedly human, or professedly divine, were […]

Much has been written of Texas by immigration boomers, “able editors” and others, with an eye single to the almighty dollar. Its healthfulness, delightful climate, undeveloped resources, churches, schools, etc., have been expatiated upon times without number, but little has been said of its transcendent beauty. The average “able editor” is not a very aesthetic […]

On one page of the Houston Post for Sunday, December 12, I find several columns devoted to “Our Boys and Girls,” on the next the following advertisement prominently displayed by a Houston haberdasher: “Our Ladies’ Garter Department: We can give you an All- Silk Garter for 50c. with nice buckles with such reading on them […]