Life, 1887-03-24 · page 4 of 16
Life — March 24, 1887 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Before and After" - An Old Sign Reversed This cartoon illustrates a visual pun about reversing signage. The left figure shows a man in formal dress reading a sign normally; the right figure depicts the same man reading it upside-down or backwards. The joke plays on how reversing text or imagery creates absurdist humor—a common device in early 20th-century satirical magazines. The caption "Before and After" and "An Old Sign Reversed" suggest the humor derives from the physical act of flipping or inverting a sign, changing its meaning. Without identifying the specific sign referenced, the cartoon exploits the visual comedy of mistaken or inverted reading—a straightforward visual gag typical of *Life* magazine's humor style.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE NEWSPAPER GUIDE. (Compiled at great expense by the Exchange Editor.) OR English read the New York Su, For scandals seek the 7imes ; And always read the New York World For full details of crimes. ‘Tis best to take the 77vidune for News of the late uprising ; And silver's worth you'll always find The Commercial advertising. For interesting items of That Democratic ghost, ‘The Civil Service, go and buy The daily Evening Post. And if you'd like to read about D. Dudley Field and brother, Invest your money in the Mfai/— Tis better than another. But if the truth alone you want, Free from all taint of libel, We think you'd better get your news From out the family bible. * * * W* very frequently see ministers, but never a church, with a surplice. * * * GENTLEMAN'S dress should always be perfectly | quiet. Hence the man who wears squeaking shoes is not a true gentleman. . % I ‘HE Sun says “we have no equivalent for dé¢e in our | language.” What is the matter with angle-worms? * * * T is a wise stock that knows its own par. . * * * G PEAVERNHARDE drinks a bottle of stout for lunch every day. Extremes still meet. * * * R. HOLMES, in his recent contribution to the A//antic, says: “I never get into a large and lofty saloon with- out feeling as if I were a weak solution of myself—my personalty almost drowned out in the flood of space about me.” The Doctor should try the Hoffman House saloon. It would make two other men of him. . HIGHLY-RESPECTED popular writer bears the name of Thomas Dunn English. But Thomas Dunn is not English; Thomas Did is more correct. Apropos of the above, we cannot but notice a peculiar co- incidence in a recent number of our highly-esteemed con- temporary the Efoch. Three consecutive articles, “ Effects of Marriage,” “Chivalry in the Cars,” and “ A Sale of Town Lots,” are written by gentlemen bearing the respective names, Welsh, Jermin and English. Here is a congress of nations indeed. BEFORE AND AFTER. AN OLD SIGN REVERSED. * * * GERMAN BAND, in a fit of abstraction, played “God Save the Queen” as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade passed up Fifth Avenue. The coroner's verdict was, “Suicide, in the first degree.” * * * | reply to a criticism on his alleged obscurity Mr. Robert Browning ventures the following remarks: ‘TI have had too long an experience of the inability of the human goose to do other than cackle when benevolent, and hiss when malicious, and no amount of goose criticism shall make me lift a heel against what waddles behind it.” Which is a long way off saying that Mr. Browning is more humane than the average mule, which is a good thing for the critics who prate of the poet's faults. If he only would allow the dynamic stores of his intellectual hoof to stretch backward for a moment how these same critics—even those from Bos- ton—would pray for that oblivion to which obscurity is as the leviathan of a drop of Croton to the elephant that disporteth itself on the circus poster. comicbooks.com