Life, 1887-03-24 · page 5 of 16
Life — March 24, 1887 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 161 The main cartoon, "The Wedding Journey," depicts a couple on a train through a tunnel. The husband quips about giving his wife "a jolly hug" during the dark passage, while she responds skeptically. This is a classic Victorian-era joke playing on the privacy and intimacy a tunnel provides—a common subject for period humor about newlyweds. Below, "A Suggestion for Dinner Givers" satirizes Washington society's pretensions. It recounts a hostess who displayed ornate salt cellars as wedding gifts at a fashionable luncheon, only to have guests steal them. The piece mocks both the hostess's ostentatious display and the guests' lack of decorum, suggesting embroidered mottos warning against theft would be appropriate for such events.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WEDDING JOURNEY. He: DEAREST, IF I HAD KNOWN THIS TUNNEL WAS SO LONG, I’D HAVE GIVEN YOU A JOLLY HUG. She: Dipy’r you? Why, SOMERODY DID! A SUGGESTION FOR DINNER GIVERS. HE Philadelphia 7e/egraph tells a harrowing tale about | a Washington hostess who recently gave a fashionable luncheon at the capital. She ordered to be placed among the table decorations, a set of salts of exceedingly handsome and novel design, which, coming from a very dear friend, were among the most highly prized of her wedding gifts. One of the servants placed the name-cards against them, and a guest, after admiring the'salt, and supposing from the card resting against it that it was intended as a favor, took it up and put it in her pocket. Most of the other guests, one by one, followed her example, while the dismayed hostess, utter- ly unable to understand the meaning of such proceedings, looked on in speechless surprise. When her guests departed she counted her treasures and found she had but two left. The next day came the explanation. A polite note was re- ceived from a lady who had been present, saying she had neglected to take her favor, mentioning it, and asking the | hostess to kindly send it to her. This is a valuable addition to the world’s sum of knowl- edge regarding social life in Washington. Taken with the Chinese Minister episode, it places Washington society in a unique position among the various social orders in this country, and makes one believe that communism is on the high-road hither. We have very little fear that the habit of appropriating the silverware of one’s host will be adopted by fashionable New York, but we cannot help suggesting that where Washing- tonians are among the guests at dinners, or other events where portable property is displayed, there should be large embroidered mottoes hung at conspicuous points of the house of entertainment, reading: | PLEASE LEAVE WHAT YOU CANNOT EAT. “ One thing that it ought to be for is to teach Christian weeklies not to steal funny matter from their wicked brothers. comicbooks.com