Life, 1885-11-26 · page 3 of 16
Life — November 26, 1885 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Cold Fiction" Cartoon Analysis This cartoon satirizes author Meta Lander's second work, "The Tobacco Problem," which apparently advocates for segregating smokers in railroad cars. The humor plays on the contrast between Lander's stated goal—keeping smokers away from others—and the impractical reality shown: a woman reading in a parlor car while a man stands nearby smoking, completely defeating the purpose. The title "Cold Fiction" suggests Lander's solution is unrealistic fantasy. The accompanying text mocks the proposal as ineffective and questions whether separate "smoking cars" would actually work, since truly unclean smokers would still contaminate shared spaces. The satire critiques both overzealous reformers and the practical impossibility of their schemes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
COLD FICTION. Hubby: SURELY YOU ARE NOT COLD MY DEAR? She: NOT IN THE LEAST, BUT THESE MODERN NOVELS ARE SO FRIGHTFULLY FRIGID I AM TRYING TO KEEP MY IMAGINATION WARM BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS. “UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!" Tow away ‘your cigarettes; put out your pipes, ye | Meta Lander, author of “The | wicked smokers. Broken Bud,” “Light on the Dark River,” etc., has, in her latest work, “ The Tobacco Problem,” shown you up in your true light. Meta, despite the fact that the title of her second work, might hold out some encouragement to those who | lack a match, desires that “railroad directors should label certain cars ‘For the Unclean,’ and then prohibit smoker or chewer from entering any other.” Meta is wrong in imagining that the directors of railroads could, by any possibility, call a spade a spade. Are not all waiting-rooms for men called “ Gentlemen's rooms” or “ Gents’ rooms,” and all rooms for women “ Ladies’ rooms?" Labeling a smoking- | car “ For the Unclean ” would have the effect of keeping out of it all the really unclean who could read, so that the car would be a delightful place for the conspicuously clean smokers. We wonder whether Meta desires the peanut and orange eaters in separate cars from the clean? | T. LOUIS fashions are now set by the suspected mur- derer, Maxwell. We trust, for the sake of the St. Louis youth, that the ex- igencies of justice will not require Mr. Maxwell to wear a | hempen collar. ee 8 . HE friends of Jeffersonian simplicity have additional evidence of the President's hostility to their cause. It has just leaked out that Mr. Cleveland puts on a clean collar every day. . . OHN HENRY GRIMES, of San Francisco, has four perfectly developed and serviceable ears. How Marc Antony, the original quoter of Shakespeare's | “ Lend me Your Ears,” would have rejoiced in John Henry Grimes. . . . HE Hub is to have a crematory. If it be found that Bostonians are too cold to cremate, it will be turned into a bean bakery. comicbooks.com