Life, 1887-08-04 · page 10 of 14
Life — August 4, 1887 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Naturally" - Life Magazine Cartoon This cartoon satirizes a young Englishman who, while staying at a seaside hotel, requests a room by letter rather than accepting standard accommodation. The joke's punchline—"The shock wakes him up!"—suggests his elaborate request produced an absurdly luxurious or comically oversized room that startles him upon arrival. The satire targets pretentious British manners and overcomplicated formality. By writing a letter to secure lodging instead of simply booking in person, the Englishman exemplifies the stuffy, bureaucratic approach Life associated with the British upper class. His shock at receiving exactly what he demanded ridicules the gap between affected expectations and reality—a common theme in Life's humor about social affectation.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: NOTHING very exciting has transpired in. sporti | week except the rumor that the rudder of the 7A/s¢/e is an inch and a half deeper than was intended. This ought to change the betting very materially, although I doubt if General Paine will find it necessary to alter the model of the Volunteer to any considerable ex- tent on this account, . * ° M® J. BEAVOR WEBB has been investigating a few more of our institutions and has had some experience as a patient in a New York hospital, I hope he found the doctors and nurses more hospitably inclined than he himself was last year when the newspaper reporters of this city rose to a man and endeavored to make his acquaintance on Lieutenant Henn’s craft. It is a good thing for Mr. Webb that he has his sickness this year instead of last. There may be some influential persons around with forgiveness enough in their hearts to pray for him this season, Last year he couldn't have secured a supplication to save him if the reser- voir had fallen on him. Altogether there is a good deal of luck in Sport. . ° ° HE New York Nine will give an exhibition of One Old Cat next month, One Old Cat is just the game for the New York Nine, and it wouldn't surprise me if in a hard struggle the New Yorks could get eighth place in a One Old Cat championship league. . . . OJOURNERS 00 the New Jersey coast enjoy themselves selling pools on the numbers of various defunct species of the animal kingdom that float their way. Tuesday was one of the dog-days, but on Thursday, after the poisoning of the twenty-one car horses on the Third Avenue Railway, the man who held the horse ticket won thirty-seven dollars. It is quite interesting to sit on the broad piazza of a bathing-house and watch the animals pass in review, and if one has a little money on the result the pastime becomes really exciting. R. JOHN WARD, Captain of the New York Baseball Nine, is quite as clever with the pen as he is with the bat. Indeed, when his literary record is compared with his baseball record, I am inclined to believe that the pen is m Mr. Ward's article in Lippincott's Magazine, “Is the Baseball Player a Chattel 2” is well considered and forcible. It ought to do much to reform the abuses which seem to have fastened themselves on the professional leagues. I think, however, that Mr, Ward should have extended his article to show a few more of the great disadvantages of the system of selling ball players. In the first place he might have dilated upon the feel- ings of a $10,000 catcher when he finds himself trying to catch a foul ball before a crowd of fifty thousand persons. He is conscious— painfully so—that he is a $10,000 catcher, and what is worse, he knows that every man, woman and reporter on the grand stand is aware of the fact. He also knows that a $2,000 pitcher is secretly praying that he will muff the ball; that his owner is sitting off in a ing him closely and composing a nice string of epithets for him in case he does muff it, and when he searches the sky for the sphere he sees as many of them as there are zeros in 10,000. This, in addition to the large head a $10,000 man has to carry when he is running bases, makes ball a painful exhibition. Then Mr. Ward might have enlarged on the unfair exclusion of umpires from fancy prices. There is not a peach-blow umpire in either of the leagues to-day, and yet there is no person connected with the game who works harder than this same official, If a catcher or other player is worth $10,000 the umpire is worth $20,000. He diverts the crowd and frequently diverts the game, What errors he makes are simply due to his lack of omniscience. He wins more games than any other individual in the field, and the wear and tear upon his conscience is far more terrible than any physical discomfort to which the active participants in the game may be subjected. Besides, life insurance is a considerable item of expense to an umpire. I hope Mr. Ward will accept my hint and agitate the subject further. And, while he is about it, there is another abuse he might be instrumental in correcting. Can he not prevail upon the Giants to play ball? Persons who frequent the Polo Grounds as a method of reducing the surplus do not care for this new parlor game the New Yorkers have adopted. Geo. W. Me. NATURALLY. YOUNG BINGLANDER ENGAGES A ROOM BY LETTER AT A SEASIDE, HOTEL, AND INSTEAD OF THE USUAL ACCOMMODATION FINDS A LARGE, COMFORTABLE APARTMENT. ‘THE SHOCK WAKES HIM UP! comicbooks.com