Life, 1886-08-26 · page 1 of 16
Life — August 26, 1886 — page 1: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine, August 26, 1886 **The Main Cartoon ("Curious")** Two men sit at a chess table. One reads a newspaper while the other watches. The dialogue reveals the joke: Oscar was talking in his sleep about "Jennie," and his friend Sliders bought a cow named after the man's wife, then showed it to Oscar at Coney Island (a popular amusement park). The humor is a straightforward domestic comedy: the wife's name is so ordinary that it's been given to livestock, and the friend's prank exploits Oscar's apparent infidelity anxiety by presenting the "cow named Jennie" as comeuppance. The chess game sets an intellectual tone, contrasting with the crude punchline about bathing cows at Coney Island—typical of Victorian-era magazine humor mixing sophistication with lowbrow jokes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1} = BEWARE OF ALL IMITATIONS, ins ony wcrwon OF Pugin Eseaning reas Peryry SansvaCIoRr (OLUME VII. NEW YORK, AUGUST 26, 1886. = NUMBER tor. Entered at New York Post Office as Second-Class Mail Matter. Copyright, 1886, by Mrrcumin & Mrixr, MES, ods they ere.) S., ADWAY, YORK, wehlcanus Sum. . ves Jay +r trains, giving n houses from the red by in Sulli- bove the ee from ss Ag’t, Alvet € Stoner 6 CURIOUS, ‘She—OscaR, YOU WERE TALKING ALL LAST NIGHT IN YOUR SLEEP ABOUT JENNIE. WHO IS JENNIE? Oscar—JENNIE? OH, HA! YES, YOU SEE MY FRIEND SLIDERS BOUGHT A COW THE OTHER DAY, AND NAMED HER AFTER HIS WIFE.AND WAS SHOWING HER TO ME. YESTERDAY. She—WELL, THAT'S THE FIRST TIME I EVER KNEW A COW TO GO IN BATHING AND EAT ICE CREAM WITH you aT Coney IsLanp. comicbooks.com