Life, 1885-06-11 · page 12 of 16
Life — June 11, 1885 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 334: Life Magazine - Theatrical Satire and Fables **Left side ("Polonius Saved"):** A comic strip sequence mocking theatrical mishaps. A starving actor playing Polonius in what appears to be a Shakespeare production is accidentally summoned by the prompter at the exact moment when the script calls for his character to be stabbed and killed onstage. He literally exits through the stage door as actors playing Hamlet stab through it, creating an unintended "rescue." The audience, thinking this is intentional, cheers "Saved is Polonius, after all!"—the humor lies in the accidental theatrical success born from the prompter's poor timing. **Right side ("Fables for the Times"):** Three illustrated moral fables with satirical twists: 1. **Tom-Cat and Bootjack:** A proud cat underestimates a humble bootjack's strength; gets beaten for his arrogance. 2. **Farmer, Snake, Rabbit, Stew:** A rabbit reasons he'll receive kindness like a snake did, but the farmer kills and cooks him instead—mocking flawed logic. 3. **Dog in the Manger:** An ill-natured dog dies from hay fever while hoarding hay—practical jokes backfire. All mock human pretension and faulty reasoning through animal characters.
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334 > LIFE: POLONIUS SAVED.—A THEATRICAL EPISODE. [Fliegende Blitter.] From the right side a youngster peeks ; To him the graybeard runs and speaks, Moved by his empty stomach’s woe: “Get me a penny loaf, Then starts, as if he had been shot ; For, lo! Polonius on the spot Falls through door at}; right, of life bereft, While Hamlet stabs through door at /e/t. PRESIDE the left hand door there stands, Waiting the prompter’s stage commands, gray-wigg'd actor, starved all day, Who now Polonius's part must play. Alas, Fate plays a sorry trick: Just at that very in- stant’s tick The prompter calls, in voice irate: “Come out, Polonius, you're late!” The Queen, made mute by her surprise, Stands fixed ; neverthe- less, the audience rise With shouts of glee, and loudly call: N “Saved is Polonius, after all!” FABLES FOR THE TIMES. THE TOM-CAT AND THE BOOTJACK. BOHEMIAN Tom-Cat met a Bootjack and said: “ You are a miserable looking object, and the menial service that you have to perform is enough to run a gentle- man crazy; but I presume you can stand it?” “Yes, I can stand it,” replied the Bootjack with a Shake- spearean snort ; “I can stand it; and if you don’t go on about your business I ‘Il knock the life out of you.” “Well,” retorted the cat, “it would not take much to get me up to the scratch; but I wouldn't strike such an object as you. If I should collide with you once your sole occupa- tion would be gone, and you would find the entertainment bootless.”” The night after the above interview the Tom-Cat ascended the woodshed in the back yard, and began to trill a stirring improvisation, when the Bootjack crept out of the window and punched the musician in the stomach with the emphasis of a pile-driver. MoRAL: This Fable teaches that it is imprudent to despise the strength of an unknown adversary because he wears an ancestral coat and a free-lunch air, THE FARMER, THE SNAKE, THE RABBIT AND THE STEW. A RABBIT saw a Farmer pick up a half-frozen Snake, take him home, warm him by a fire and turn him loose. Then the Rabbit soliloquized as follows: “I am better and more respectable than a Snake in every respect ; the Farmer was very kind and courteous to the Snake, and it follows as a logical necessity that he would treat me with still greater kindness and consideration.” The next day the ! Rabbit stretched himself on the side of a path along which he knew the Farmer would pass, and pretending to be over- come with cold, awaited developments. The Farmer soon came along and, seeing the Rabbit, picked him up and car- ried him home. After warming him by a hot fire, he was so well pleased with the Rabbit's fine condition that he killed him and converted him into a tempting Stew. MoRAL: This Fable teaches how insecure is the most majestic fabric of logical architecture, when it rests on prem- ises constructed on the plan of the latter day tenement houses. THE DOG IN THE MANGER. AS ill-natured Dog once intrenched himself in a Manger and drove away all the Oxen that came to eat the hay, remarking to them with malicious sarcasm that it was the “ hey-day ” of his existence, and that he needed the hay for his couch. In a few days the dog died with the hay fever, and his sole pall-bearer was a saltpetre manufacturer, who was suspected of having underground designs on the corpse. MoRAL: This Fable teaches that practical jokes often develop a surprising amount of back-action. comicbooks.com