Life, 1883-06-21 · page 13 of 16
Life — June 21, 1883 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a Victorian-era moral fable using a cat character named Tom-my to teach children about consequences of wrongdoing. The narrative follows the cat after recovering from illness: weakened and unable to catch rats legitimately, Tom-my turns to theft and burglary. The satire is gently ironic—the text preaches morality ("Do not be Wicked") while depicting Tom-my's crimes. Notably, the butcher shop scene shows Tom-my's conscience intervening before he steals meat, suggesting even animals possess moral sense. The humor lies in applying human ethical frameworks to animal behavior and in the deadpan, exaggerated solemnity of the moral instruction. The artist (C. Shultz) uses this comic strip format to parody the period's didactic children's literature, which relied heavily on cautionary tales about crime and punishment to instruct young readers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘LIFE: You see, my good lit-tle read-ers, it does not do to be Wick-ed and get found Out. HE CAUGHT SOMETHING. Af-ter Tom-my got Well, he was’n’t so hand-some a Kit-ten as he was be-fore, but he knew more. £x-pe- ri-en-ti-a do-cet, and he had a pret-ty good dose. Un- for-tun-ate-ly he ran a-away from home as soon as he LAID UP. This e-vil step soon brought its pun-ish-ment. Tom-my could-n't catch rats, and so he had to steal. ——~ C. SHULTZ. FRESH MEAT, HE WENT TO STEAL A PIECE OF MEAT. Now this was ve-ry wick-ed, for ‘fom-my was al- most sure to be found out. Lit-tle chil-dren, when you are tem-pted to Steal, al ways be cer-tain.that you can-not be Found out. Do as the pi-ous po- i do, an get as-cer-tain- ed. Well, Tom- my went in-to a but-cher’s shop to steal a mut- ton chop, but just as he was a-bout to steal it the but-cher turned A-round, and then Tom- my sud-den-ly rem -em - bered what the Good Book says, and his_con-science whis-pered him to go Home as quickly as he could. He did so, and left the piece of Meat be-hind. Little children, when you are temp-ted, do as Tom-my did. The next ex-per-i-ence of Tom-my was an at-tempt to bur-glar-ize a house. He det-er-mined to enter a house by way of the kit- chen drain. His pi-ous com-pan-i-ons tried to dis- suade him, because they were a-fraid he would eat up HE LEFT A PIECE OF MEAT. comicbooks.com