Life, 1883-03-01 · page 6 of 16
Life — March 1, 1883 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis: "Life" Magazine, Page 100 This page satirizes the use of animals in early photography and cinematography. The top illustration shows "The Camera with Crank Attachment"—a device that mechanically moves a calf while a photographer operates a camera on a tripod, creating the illusion of motion pictures. The accompanying text mocks this deception, noting that calves were "more peaceful in ancient times" and suggesting the practice is cruel and undignified for the animal. The lower silhouettes show a boy struggling to control a bucking calf with a whip and rope. The satire targets both the absurdity of early film technology and the ethical concerns of animal exploitation for entertainment—criticizing those who prioritize mechanical innovation over animal welfare and basic decency.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIFE: the progress of some members of the lower animal kingdom, and threatens our whole social structure with disaster. The calf was certainly more peaceful in ancient times. We have in the accompanying fragment of a mosaic very lately unearthed at Pompeii* and called THE CAMERA WITH CRANK ATTACHMENT. The illustration of the camera, with crank attach- ment and a cylindrical revolving dry-plate holder, capable of taking 12 or 24 pictures in less than 3s'ss part of a second will be understood at a glance. A single motion revolves the plates, opens and closes a more than instantaneous lens attachment and avoids the complications arising from an indiscriminate lot of cameras and threads stretched in the path of the animal, When mounted on a circular disk that is attached to the animal by a rope, as in another illustration, the animal, however freakish, is at last cornered and can do nothing against science and brains. Here is an expression of peace and contentment and good humor which would induce the most diffident stranger to terms of intimacy. “Calve Canem,” an exhibition of temper, but nowhere is it mentioned that the animal was ever wont to take human life. More generally it is busied in the human occupation of doing nothing, as in the two other pictures, an ob- verse and reverse, taken from an old Faience coffee- pot, and very aptly called “ Caffy Noire” and “ Caffy au Lait.” Now, however, the calf has become so erratic and unaccountable in its habits and motions as to be- come a danger to the community. Note, for instance, the following series of four photographs taken in less than 1=75 of a second. * A mosaic used as a door mat in front of a milkman’s shop. Things grow more stormy. The boy is thinking better about the stroke with the whip and seems to feel a danger from the region of his left hand. comicbooks.com