Life, 1887-07-14 · page 4 of 16
Life — July 14, 1887 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 18 This page contains brief satirical news items and commentary typical of Life magazine's format. The main cartoon at bottom, titled "Electricity Bringing the Good News to the Weary and Overladen," depicts a woman in classical dress (likely representing Liberty or Progress) surrounded by mythological figures, proclaiming electricity as a solution to human hardship. The text items mock contemporary figures and events: President Cleveland's nurse, Buffalo Bill in London, Hawaiian political turmoil, and Count Clam (a conservative politician). One item jokes about a "whiskey pool" and another references tight corsets as false economy. The cartoon celebrates electricity as a modern advancement that will alleviate suffering—a common late-19th-century progressive theme. The mythological imagery suggests electricity represents enlightenment and hope for society's problems.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ESSRS. BLA , Phelps, Lowell and Buffalo Bill, America’s Big Four, are all in London. Mv ° . . RESIDENT CLEVELAND'S nurse has died. She was less fortunate, in this respect, than George Wash- ington's. . . . HE threatened revolution in the Hawaiian Islands prom- ises to send the monarchy to its final sleep with an Hono-luluby. N his Atlantic ode, “ My Country,” Geo. E. Woodberry describes Justice as “the third great base" on which our welfare is founded. It was high time that our national game should be recognized in patriotic poetry. . . . FRENCHMAN and a German rooming together in a Massachusetts town are said to have struck up a charming friendship. Neither of them can speak English, and they are unacqainted with each other's language. There would be many more delightful friendships in the world if people generally were poor linguists. . . . OUNT CLAM, the leader of the ultra-conservative Czecks, is dead. He was of very aristocratic family, but did not reside at Little Neck. . . . HE unnatural contraction caused by tight-laced corsets, being pronounced injurious by physiologists, is evidently false economy. However small the circumference may be, therefore, the waist may still be extravagant. F the shad which have nearly abandoned the Connecticut River have only taken the precaution of carrying their bones with them, our grief for their departure will not be without consolation, UTILIZING ITS ADVANTAGES. HE Philadelphia Crematory Association has completed its plans for a mortuary bakery. No furnaces will be needed, because the requisite heat for incinerating human bodies will be supplied by storing up the average Philadelphia summer climate in large receivers. HE formation of a “whiskey pool" is announced as a matter of news. But the whiskey pool has existed for a long time. It has been kept constantly full, and many thousands of men and women have been sunk in it. * . . “ HEN we déscribe our sensations of another's sor- rows,” wrote Dr. Johnson, “the customs of the world scarcely admit of rigid veracity.” So thought Wall Street, probably, in its condolences with a recent distinguished and venerable lamb. . . . . AMES G. BLAINE, at the last Mrs. Potter performance J in London, appeared in company with Red Shirt. The English, as is well known, translate our word “red” into “bloody.” . . . MPEROR WILLIAM has resorted to Ems, but it is not stated how many he can set up in an hour. . * . MR. C. D. VAN WINKLE has subscribed to the New York Star's Grant Monument Fund. His relative, Mr. Rip Van Winkle, however, will doubtless have time to com- plete another twenty years’ nap before the monument is put up. . . . HE attention of the world has lately been called to the existence of a talking canary, which was trained by a woman. There's nothing like the force of example. ELECTRICITY BRINGING THE GOOD NEWS TO THE WE\RY AND OVERLADEN. comicbooks.com