Life, 1883-06-14 · page 10 of 16
Life — June 14, 1883 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine Page 284: Analysis **The Main Cartoon ("Consoled"):** This is a romantic comedy about a jilted man sitting alone by the shore, brooding over his lost love "Nan" who has taken up with another man. As he contemplates taking a train out of town in despair, he spots "Kate"—another woman who has *also* been abandoned (by the same man who stole Nan). The humor lies in their mutual misery: both have been "badly sold" (betrayed), so he consoles himself by asking her to walk home with him. It's gentle satire on romantic fickleness and how the rejected bond over shared heartbreak. **The Text Below:** The remaining content includes a fake advertisement ("Harvard Elixir" testimonial from Benjamin Butler) and a serious article criticizing the Irish Catholic Church's practice of selling burial plots—then evicting bodies when families can no longer pay for masses. It's biting satire exposing the Church's commercialization of the dead. The tonal contrast between the light romantic verse and the grim ecclesiastical critique is typical of *Life*'s satirical range.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
CONSOLED. OW those beastly breakers moan As they wash the shore! Sitting on the rocks alone Gets to be a bore. Into smoke my cigarette Slowly winds away. Long ago it seems, and yet Tt was yesterday— Yesterday the sky seemed fair; T was here with Nan; Now she’s round the corner there With another man, I can see her sunshade’s top Bobbing up and down. If that cad intends to stop I shall go to town. There's a Boston train to-night Starts at half-past eight. Hello ! Who's that girlin white? Why, by Jove ! it's Kate! She is looking rather worse, And extremely blue. I remember now, of course, She's deserted, too! What she saw in such a man Would be hard to state, But for weeks that beast with Nan Has been spoons on Kate. Poor dear Kit! it’s hardly bliss Sitting there alone. How piquant her profile is, Seen against the stone ! If I really go to town Nan will merely say ‘That she only had to frown And I rushed away. Kitty's voice is sweet and low, Kitty's eyes are grey; ‘They can glance at one, 1 know, Ina charming way. Six o'clock. The wind is cold, Blowing from the sea. Kate! we've both been badly sold — Please walk home with me ! ACCORDING to the contemporary press, ‘‘ nearly every resident of Colorado has a valuable piece of property to dispose of.” “‘ Many men, many mines,” as it were. Trustees oF Harvar Cou. Gentlemen—This is tu certify that about six months ago I was seized with a burning pain on the left side of my ambition, and couldn't sleep by day or night. One bottle of your “Harvard Elixir" has cured me. Gratefully yours, BENJAMIN BUTLER.—Adv. ‘T has been for centuries the custom of the Irish Catholic Church to bury its dead in consecrated ground, and to charge the mourners a round apostolic sum for the blessed _privilege.thus enjoyed by the de- ceased. The rich sinner who was inhumed nearest the altar was, of course, taxed most heavily, and was, in return, the first to be plucked from purgatorial pains by masses, while the poor reprobate, whose bones mouldered on the cheap outskirts of the sacred lot, lay howling in seven-fathom hell until the full term of his penance expired. It was popularly supposed by the ignorant that the large sums paid for grave-yard shares, on this principle, gave to the corpse an eternal right to his last resting-place, and that the last to trample upon the dead man’s rights would be the church he had enriched. As the organ of the Irish Catholic Church, we hasten to correct this error. No one has a right to property which the church can sell. The Catholic grave-yards in this city have long since been sold in parcels, but the church reserves the right, just so soon as money for masses ceases to flow in from the family of the deceased, to cast out the entire lot of cadavers and plant fresh ones. comicbooks.com