Life, 1883-12-20 · page 17 of 24
Life — December 20, 1883 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical cartoon jokes about class disparities in food access. A delivery man from a catering establishment arrives with a meal, and a servant mistakenly asks if it's Mr. Wells' breakfast. The delivery man indignantly corrects her: it's actually lunch for "the invalid lady at 36"—implying the wealthy Wells family eats so much that their servants assume every delivery must be for them. The accompanying text discusses wedding gifts and "Lower Classes," contrasting wealthy households who enjoy turkey year-round with poor families for whom Christmas turkey is a rare luxury. The title "Cannibalism" darkly suggests the wealthy metaphorically consume the labor and resources of the poor. The cartoon satirizes turn-of-the-century class inequality—mocking the obliviousness of the rich to their own excess while the working poor struggle with scarcity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
CANNIBALISM. Servant, to delivery man from Catering establishment: BEEN WAITIN’ MORE 'N AN HOUR FOR YOU—AIN'T you Mr. WELLS’ BREAKFAST ? Stalwart delivery man, indignantly: Me? LUNCH FO’ DE INVALID LADY AT 36! Naw! I atn’r No Mr. WELLSES BREAKFAS’—I’M DE it were ineffectual, and he hasn't spoken to her since. But with exercise of the average amount of care, wedding-gifts may be made as useful a medium of circulation as our last year’s hoard of Easter cards, and may bring forth fruit more copiously. For exceptional cases, however, such as a dropsical but opulent aunt with chronic tendency to vacillation in the matter of her will, or a gouty grandfather possessed of the absurd idea that his relatives love him with an interested love, a great deal of tact must be employed. Usually, however, we guage our vict—I mean our rich relatives—rightly, and the result is, of course, very happy. But to return to the Lower Crasses, Somehow, Christmas seems to be a day specially made for their happiness. What to us, who have turkey the year round, is that fat, brown and stream- ing symbol of good cheer, when brought upon our table, but a mere additional infliction of daily monotony? Can we enter into the joy that fills that Lower CLass household, when their starved comicbooks.com