Life, 1886-07-01 · page 12 of 18
Life — July 1, 1886 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Understanding This 1912 Life Magazine Satire This is a whimsical underwater romance parody featuring deep-sea divers. The story mocks Victorian melodrama by transplanting it to an absurd setting—divers courting on the ocean floor. The satire works through several layers: divers communicate via sign language (sign for "deaf and dumb"), creating comic impossibility of "oral converse." A rejected suitor attempts murder with a knife, only to be killed by a shark—a darkly comic intervention. The story concludes with an underwater wedding performed by a justice-of-the-peace diver. References to real elements ground the fantasy: the "Mackay-Bennett cable" was an actual transatlantic telegraph cable; the invented sea creatures (myxtnotd, charleywampus) are pure nonsense. The joke targets sentimental romance literature's melodramatic conventions—love triangles, rejected suitors, dramatic interventions—by rendering them ridiculous through underwater logistics. Wallace Peck's cartoon illustrations emphasize the absurdity throughout.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
12 cable as he neared. The new comer, with his free, open bearing, was fair to behold; and she felt a tremor at her heart as he stopped at a respectful distance and regarded her with evident admiration. Oral converse was, under the circumstances, impossible ; but with the expressive signs of the United States deaf and dumb language he told the maid his passion. He pointed to “SHE FELT A TREMOR AT HER HEART." his heart, and then from the ends of his fingers came the vows with which man wooes woman. Simple, trusting Babette! Child wife! Soon he had his arm about her waist, and her encased head lay confidingly on his bosom. In troth it was a pretty picture. But true love never runs smooth, Babette had divers diver lovers ; and, as she stood thus encircled, with her little foot idly tapping the Mackay-Bennett cable, a rejected suitor THE PRETTY PICTURE, SAE EB - happened that: way, in his search for a garbage scow which had been recently sunk. He started and glared at the sight of Babette and a favored rival. He’stamped his foot—he shook his fist at the pair. ‘THE VILLAIN RETIRES. He would kill that rival—he would cut his rubber air pipe ! With a clasp-knife aloft—with a howl which was confined to his iron cowl, he rushed on the unconscious pair. Just as the knife was about to descend there was a swoop above, a turn of a dorsal fin, a flash of a mighty tail, and THE WEDDING. the would-be murderer was checked in his foul act, and whisked away to meet, himself, a shark-ing death. Babette and her diver, unconscious of all but themselves, strolled on, arm in arm, apast the house of the A7ppoglos- sozdes and the lair of the jelly-fish, along by the home of the myxtnotd (half-brother to the charleywampus). On they went, unmolested, until, happening to meet an- other diver, who, on earth, was a justice of the peace, they knelt, and were made merman and wife. , Wallace Peck. comicbooks.com