Life, 1884-08-07 · page 6 of 16
Life — August 7, 1884 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Dead Give-Away" Cartoon Analysis This cartoon illustrates a Latin phrase about a man stepping on a *Horridus Crotatus* (a "horrible rattle"—likely a rattlesnake). The four-line Latin verse jokes that the man "got 'em again" and his "abstemious homo totatus" (austere/sober self) is in pain. The accompanying illustration shows a thin man in formal dress who has stepped on a coiled snake with a human head, creating a darkly comic visual pun. The cartoon appears to satirize someone's repeated misfortune or foolishness—stepping on danger despite knowing better. Without additional context about which specific person or event this references, the exact satirical target remains unclear, though it likely mocked a contemporary public figure's recurrent blunders or moral failings.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
76 vacation, being diagnosed and treated for every known dis- ease from Asiatic Cholera to Pugilistic Malaria. In consequence, I soon recovered my eyesight sufficiently to perceive a hole in the average millstone. I never mentioned my night's experience, for my friends concluded that I had been either drunk or dreaming, and my enemies laid special stress on the former—as also, alas, did Priscilla ! CHAPTER II. Neither for Love Nor Marriage—Just for Fun, T is spring! No matter what is spring, nor whether more correct English would lead us to say, “It is sprung.” My friend Bunion and I—my name, by the way, is one which. Redes | you have doubtless never met with in a novel before— Vaughan, Gilbert Vaughan—are traveling in Italy. Wehave been loafing about Turin all day and are wandering down the Via Hokipoki. Coming tothe church of San Jimblani, Bunion sees a pretty girl accompanied by her servant go in, and for once in his life he is seized with the desire to attend church. | Charitably bestowing our cigar stumps upon the beggars, we enter, and lo! there is the girl. Itisa prima facie case of love on my part. Such hair! Indeed, it might have been claimed by any nation (I have since learned that it was made DEAD GIVE-AWAY. HERE once erat homo tetotalus Qui stepped on a Horridus Crotalus— Quum clamavit in pain “Hic got em again!” Hic abstemious homo tetotalus. | sorrow. | whom Ihad seen them in Turin I married the girl. *- LIFE: in America). As a tall, finely formed Italian is awaiting the ladies without, Bunion and I conclude to forego the usual un- ceremonious methods of scraping acquaintance. Tall Italians are apt on such occasions to make themselves superfluous. Shortly after the ladies issue forth, as we supposed they would as the plate was about to be passed. We watched them out of sight with admiring glances. “Does the Monsieur step at every woman of beauty which he has vision to ?” said a malicious looking Italian at my side. “T fail to catch your ‘mean.’ “Step?” “It should have been said ‘stare,’ make no humorousness of me. Iam the Anglishman my own!” “Yes,” said I. “1 recognized your idiomatic expressions.” “Tam no idiomatic: Bia Ladi! I cut ze juglas of you.” A hot reply is on my lips when Bunion, who is a man of infinite resource and common sense, seeing the stranger is equal to two of my size, manages to make me swallow my remark and squirm out of trouble. Bunion then maintained a studious politeness toward the Italian until a policeman comes in sight when he idiomati- cally requests him to mind his own business. Before the foreigner has time to give vent to his wrath we are riding down the Via Tonipiastri past the Tammani Rialto and shortly after we leave Italy. On my return to London I again met my beautiful un- How tutti-frutti,” said I. | known and having traced her to a select boarding house, | managed to secure rooms in the same building. She seemed | preoccupied, and when at the table I noticed that she ate the mutton-fish-balls and veal chicken salads without betraying the slightest emotion, I concluded that she had some secret I gradually became acquainted with the servant, Therese, and after much talk with the mysterious Italian with She is now Mrs. Vaughan née Pauline March. The old man was Pauline’s uncle and rejoiced in the pic- turesque name of Doctor Manuel Sceneri. He did not tackle kindly at first to my marriage with his niece and asked the size of my cheques. Mercenary wretch! In a spirit of levity I referred him to my trousers which being of English texture should have satisfied him. “Corpo Tobacco! was his sole remark. “ Pauline has nothing. I am glad Signor is rich.” I had gone too far to back down, and so the wedding came off immediately, which little ceremony pleased Manuel im- mensely. “He is tired of paying her board bills,” said I to Bunion. Up to this time Pauline had not said enough to fill a half column, so I took her to Ireland for our wedding tour, where she kissed the blarney-stone and then set out for Scotland. | It was there I learned that my wife had no mind whatsoever. Alas! she has since recovered, as is shown by the pieces I am daily receiving. But Sceneri! He knew all this before. have a reckoning with Sceneri. “Do you know Sceneri’s address ?” I asked of Pauline. Ah, but I will comicbooks.com