Life, 1883-07-26 · page 10 of 16
Life — July 26, 1883 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis: "The Ocean Steamer—No. 3" and "A Little Story" The cartoon depicts a hotel porter carrying an enormous stack of luggage balanced precariously on his head, captioned "I say, mister, where shall I set these?" The joke satirizes the absurd service expectations at fashionable seaside hotels—the porter's impossible burden suggests the ridiculousness of handling guests' excessive belongings. The accompanying poem by Will Lampton mocks the romanticized "seaside hotel experience," where guests pay "four dollars and a half a day" to sit by the shore and dream—presented as frivolous self-indulgence. "A Little Story" satirizes a "Quack Politician" (likely referencing a real political figure, though unclear which) who relies entirely on advertising to maintain public visibility. The satire suggests that opponents' negative campaigns paradoxically boost the politician's fame. The story uses a patent-medicine analogy to critique political marketing and warns that attempts to discredit a "bold and bad" politician through public vilification actually enhance his reputation and appeal.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE OCEAN STEAMER—No. 3. A Slight Token. I SAY, MISTER, WHERE SHALL I SET THESE ? BY THE SEA. | (Written not far from a fashionable seaside hotel, Time ras PM) “THE evening sun in vermeil dyes Of changing color, paints the skies In lighter tints, in darker shades, As daylight into twilight fades. And from afar the restless sea Sends in its throbbing waves to me, As lone I sit upon the shore, And hear them echo—‘‘ Evermore,” Such waves they are as only sigh— Such waves as lately kissed the sky, Where sky and sea meet in the red Horizon’s distance, and are led Like blushing brides, until they beat Upon the shore their cadence sweet In liquid music, whose soft strain Brings healing balm to hearts in pain. I sit here by the sea, and dream My days away, and yet I deem Them not all lost. The world must be | A home for dreamers. Why not me? No life but has its hopes and fears ; Our sweetest pleasures follow tears. Come waves, come dreams, I tribute pay— Four dollars and a half a day. WILL Lampton, THE COMMON LOT. Hor ey. More beer Kept cool I got, On beer. More I Darnphool ! Got hot. Next day Swelled head. Wished I Was dead. Davin A. Curtis. A LITTLE STORY. NCE upon a time there was a certain Quack Politician, who depended entirely upon advertis- ing to keep his name before the people ; for it is well known that unless a Quack article, whether it be a medicine which is said to cure all physical ills or a politician, which is said to cure all political ills, is kept conspicuously before the public, the many-headed will have nothing to do with it. And it so happened that those good men and true, who wished to see the public supplied with nice, safe milk-and-water politicians, who neither cheer nor inebriate, kept posting legends and inscriptions broad- cast in the land over which the Quack Politician desired to rule ; to this effect. “Do not use Butler's Bunkum Billingsgate. It will ruin your constitution, to say nothing of your by-laws.” “Do not vote for the Bold and the Bad.” And even as the store-keeper who tried to ruin his neigh- bor’s business by advising the public to shun his rival’s shop, found that he had diverted all his own trade to his rival, so these Good and True men found that they had been gratuitously advertising the Quack Politician, until he had become such a Personality that the people said, “‘ He may be Bold and Bad, but he is smarter than lightning, or all these men would not decry him and vituperate him. comicbooks.com