Life, 1886-10-14 · page 5 of 20
Life — October 14, 1886 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Cowboys' Deep-Sea Angling Club" This is a humorous satirical piece about cowboys attempting deep-sea fishing. The text describes how ranch cowboys, bored with ranch life, formed a fishing club and traveled by train ("The Tom-Cat Special") to the Atlantic coast for an ocean fishing adventure. The humor centers on the incongruity of rough western cowboys encountering massive sea creatures—they joke about catching sharks, whales, and octopuses. One illustration shows a giant porpoise capsizing their boat, while another depicts the men in a fishing boat with their lines in the water. The satire gently mocks both the cowboys' naive enthusiasm and the contrast between their land-based skills and the ocean's actual dangers. It's lighthearted Americana humor typical of *Life* magazine's satirical approach to American regional character types.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE COWBOYS’ HE cowboys of the Buckhorn Ranch began to yearn for anew experience, a novel sensation. Encompassed for a lifetime by thousands of miles of alkali, motionless prairie—hemmed in by the eternal expanse of land—they longed to stand on the sea-shore and view the vasty deep. But, beyond this, they longed for an experience with the lusty fins beneath the sea surface —in fact, to come to the point, they wanted to have just one up-at-four-out-till-night-bite-like-thunder-and-pull-like-a steer salt-water fish, the excitement of which they had heard of from travelers, and read of in stray coast newspapers. After such an experi- ence, they felt that they could die happy. So, after the spring round up, the Cowboys’ Deep-Sea Angling Club was formed, and its members chartered a special car, and started for the broad Atlantic. They christened their train ‘* Zhe Tom-Cod Special,” | judging from the weight. DEEP-SEA ANGLING CLUB. The effect on the strangers was electrical. Like a galvanic shock went a sensation through each fiber of those wild Westerners. A moment — but a moment — then each cowboy made a wild rush for a little bunch of row-boats, moored to the pier. Another brief moment, and each man was mid-stream with his previously prepared line deep in the water. Would they be rewarded by a bite? Ha, yes! every one of them— simultaneously, and a bite for each hook; and, let us hope, a fish for each line. Wild with the sensation of the moment, each Westernes hauled in his line—that line which must have a forty-pounder Ha! They'd show the tenderfoot how to- catch his own fish. One-eyed Peter thought his must be a shark ; Gallopin’ Si calculated his must be a whale; while Bandy-legged Ik, though not quite sure as. ‘“A HUGE PORPOISE LAZILY ROLLED OVER ON HIS SIDE.” and during the trip, Chinee Mose built near the car stove what he | termed his “‘ porgie bin.” Hope ran high. From the end of an old pier, the Club viewed for the first time the mighty waters of the sea, and as the members stood, open-mouthed, a wave parted, and a huge porpoise lazily rolled over on his side. to what constituted an octopus, was willing to gamble on the fact that he had one within a short distance of his boat. A long pull, astrong pull, and a pull all together, and then, simulta- neously, issued from the water all the hooks of the club, firmly grasp- ing —Writhing cod ? Fighting haddock ? Struggling porgies? Nay. EACH MAN WAS IN THE STREAM WITH HIS LINE IN THE WATER. comicbooks.com