Life, 1884-01-03 · page 3 of 19
Life — January 3, 1884 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 3 The cartoon titled "LOGIC" depicts a domestic dispute. A wife confronts her husband John Henry about appearing intoxicated at a party, noting everyone noticed his condition. His defense employs circular logic: he claims if he'd been "quite right" and "not 'all 'toxicated," people would have noticed *that* instead—therefore, their noticing his intoxication proves nothing unusual occurred. The satire mocks male drunkenness and the absurd excuses husbands offered to wives. The cartoon presents a common domestic scenario of the period where a husband's heavy drinking was socially tolerated but personally problematic. Below is a poem titled "Over the Way" about lost love and regret, unrelated to the cartoon. The page represents typical early-20th-century Life magazine content: satirical commentary on middle-class social behavior.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Wife (to husband, who has fallen into bad ways): THING ? EVERYONE AT THE PARTY SAW THAT YOU YOU WERE INTOXICATED! Joun Henry, HOW COULD YOU DO SUCH A WERE NOT QUITE RIGHT; EVERYONE NOTICED THAT Husband; TuHar’s alt RIGHT. IF I'D BEEN QUITE RIGHT AND NOT ‘TALL 'TOXICATED THEY 'D HAVE NOTICED THAT TOO—JUS' SAME THING, M’ DEAR! OVER THE WAY. I N an attic window, over the way, There hangs a cage where sings a bird— Presumably sings ; for, alack-a-day ! His faintest note I have never heard. For constantly closed by night and day, Is that attic window, over the way. At that attic window, over the way, There sits a maiden who sews and smiles, But on whom she smiles I cannot say ; Not upon me does she waste her wiles. Never toward me do her glances stray, From that attic window, over the way. To that attic window, over the way, Do what I will, my eyes will turn. A non-conductor is glass they say— It must be so, or her cheeks would burn, And her fair face flush, with a strange dismay, At that attic window, over the way. By that attic window, over the way, I acknowledge I’m nearly driven wild. If I could hear once that small bird’s lay ! If only once upon me shed smiled ! But I can’tand she hasn't! Perhaps she may, When she reads these lines, on some blest day, Let one sweet, sunny smile me repay From that attic window, over the way,* P, S.—Dear sir: I regret to say (Through qualms of conscience I cannot lay) ‘That a vacant lot where the children play, And the Wm. goat browseth all the day, From my present palace (Avenue ‘ A") Is the only thing that 's over the way. J. Curever Goopwin. Confidential note to the Editor accompanying the foregoing. Tue big inning of the end. The one in which the last game of the season is lecided. A DEAL table.—A card table. comicbooks.com