Life, 1883-06-14 · page 5 of 16
Life — June 14, 1883 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 279 **"Amateur Boxing" Cartoon:** This satirical illustration mocks inexperienced boxers attempting a match. The dialogue reveals the absurdity: one amateur instructs "no slugging," "no hitting hard," "no knocking out," emphasizing "keeping distance" and "no running." The joke is that these aren't boxing rules at all—they're the opposite of boxing. The cartoon ridicules genteel amateur sportsmen who want the appearance of boxing without actual combat, reducing the sport to a charade of cautious posturing. **"He Was a Searcher" Story:** This text piece satirizes an eccentric millionaire-collector who purchased an enormous random assortment of valuable and worthless items at auction (Persian furniture, Native American artifacts, etc.). A newspaper reporter's quip—"many of them were given to him"—suggests the collection's chaotic nature. The "seedy" employee who claims to be searching for "lavender trousers" underscores the absurdity of such indiscriminate collecting.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AMATEUR BOXING. 1st Amateur: No s 2d Amateur : 1st Amateur : 2d Amateur : 1st Amateur: 2d Amateur : NG, NOW. AND NO KNOCKING OUT, EITHER, KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. No RUNNING IN ON A FELLOW. Look OUT FOR YOURSELF, THEN. ALL RIGHT, NO HITTING HARD, YOU KNOW. HE WAS A SEARCHER. ~ HERE was sold in this city, last week, the collec- tion of a virtuoso and bric-’-brac hunter who has retired from business. It was a queer lot, taken altogether, as Satan is reported to have said of the Ten Commandments, when he first read them. There were yataghans from Montenegro, scalping-knives from the Mandan country, Chinese ceramics and Peruvian rub- bish, Louis Quartorze furniture, Spanish leather-work, Roman relics, Mexican silver filagree, East Indian brasses and North American wampum, bronzes from Paris and Capo di Monte ware, Dutch carvings and Alaskan wood-butcheries, Gobelin tapestry and Navajo blankets. It was the spoil of innumerable private museums, the riff-raff of junk-shops and the loot of one who, in his day, had bean a sort of social bandit, guerilla, the terror of thetown: Looking at the motley jumble, a purse-proud mil- lionaire, bewildered, said: “Did he buy all these things 7” “Oh, no,” replied a seedy newspaper man, “many of them we: collected them. “Bless my life !” cried the amazed millionaire, “but he couldn't have stolen all of these, you know.” ““Convey, the wise it call,’ was the Delphic re- sponse of the seedy one. Into the auction room sauntered the club wit, Tal: boys the imperturbable, peering into pots and pans, opening the doors of buhl cabinets, and shaking out the folds of Persian embroideries. “Are you a buyer, Tal., that you should scan this collection so closely ?” “No,” answered Tal., while a sad smile irradiated his gig-lamps, “I'ma searcher. I’m looking for my lavender trowsers,”’ But in the cheaply erudite catalogue there was no mention made of lavender trowsers. given to him; that is to say, he— Provers by a milliner: Wilful waist makes woful Jersey. THERE were heroes before Agamemnon, but they didn’t advertise. comicbooks.com