Life, 1886-07-15 · page 8 of 12
Life — July 15, 1886 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 40 **Top Cartoon - "Settling Old Scores":** Two men at a table discuss a debt. Smith tells Brown that Robinson was looking for him to collect twenty-five dollars owed. Brown responds he'll pay Robinson when Robinson returns from the West, but questions *why* Robinson should expect to settle—implying the debt may be disputed or that Brown doubts Robinson's claim is legitimate. **Lower Content:** A phrenology diagram shows a woman's head with labeled regions of the brain (marked "Home," "Man," etc.), satirizing pseudoscientific attempts to determine character from head shape—a discredited practice popular in the 19th century. The remaining text includes a poem "To Her" and brief humorous anecdotes about social etiquette and a minister teaching cornet lessons. The page primarily mocks debt disputes, pseudoscience, and social conventions of its era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SETTLING OLD SCORES. Smith; ROBINSON WAS LOOKING FOR YOU TO-DAY, BROWN. HE LEAVES FOR THE WEST TO-MORROW MORNING, WHERE REMAIN, AND HE WANTED TO COLLECT THAT TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS YOU OWE HIM. Yes, I SAW HIM A LITTLE WHILE AGO, I PROMISED TO FORWARD HIM THE MONEY NEXT WEEK. IN WHAT PART OF THE WEST DOES HE EXPECT TO SETTLE? Brown: 1 DON'T KNOW, I DIDN'T ASK HIM, Next, we have a head, recently examined at Macy's Nineteen-Cent Bumpological Counter, showing conclusively what has not been up to this time advanced, viz., that several disconnected bumps of the same nature often occupy the one cranium. Cuart II, SHOWING BUMPAL FORMATION ON HEAD OF NEW YORK WOMAN. Observe the small bump of ‘‘ Home,” and you will at once know the lady is a society beauty. FRENCHMAN, who had viewed the “Mikado” for the first time, expressed his opinion that “ze gentle- man vat makes so much of ze money from his position was well called Pour-Boire.” TO HER. IMPROMPTU, WITH SOME ROSES, HESE flowers hang their heads because, you see, I kissed them e’er I let them go to thee, And that they get their message straight, I send This note, their sweet confusion to amend. But if, perchance, in this I’ve been too free, Return the flowers and the kiss to me, And let no thought of pity thy soul fill, Send back the roses when and how you will, The kiss, I prithee, do more kindly treat And give it to me, darling, when we meet. Sheffield Phelps. N England it is now considered bad form for a man to marry his wife’s deceased sister. MINISTER Cox. is giving Abdul Hamid lessons on the cornet. “cc HY, Augustus, what in gracious name came over you this evening?” said a fashionable wife to her husband on their return from a society dinner. “You called twice for soup, eat peas with your knife, and drank out of the finger bowl.” “All right, my dear, I have been nominated for alderman, and I'm practicing.”