Life, 1887-09-08 · page 12 of 16
Life — September 8, 1887 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Monkey Must Go" — Life Magazine Satire This page contains a six-panel comic strip (top) depicting a mischievous monkey wreaking havoc in an office or study, followed by separate satirical text sections below. The comic illustrates the phrase "Life's ape monkeys with the mucilage"—visual wordplay on the saying "life plays tricks on us." The lower sections are short satirical quips mocking contemporary society: - **"Proverlets"** (left): Cynical reversals of common sayings. For example, proverb XI mocks New York aldermen's corruption ("Evil communications are worth about $30,000 apiece"). Proverb X suggests wills exist to be broken. - **"A Good Investment"** (right): A dialogue joke where Featherly claims not to find young Brown boring because he lent Brown $500 a year ago—implying the debt makes him indifferent to Brown's company. - **"His Own Importation"**: Mocks a Yorkville (wealthy NYC neighborhood) snob asking for imported cigars, only to be sold cheap Jersey cigars labeled as "two-fer-five." The satire targets corruption, greed, hypocrisy, and class pretension in Gilded Age America.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: THE MONKEY MUST GO. sim mhaene LIFE'S APE MONKEYS WITH THE PROVERBLETS. Ix, TAKE care of the pence and the absconding cashier will take care of the pounds. x. WHERE there's a will there's a way to break it. XI: EVIL communications are worth about $30,000 apiece to New York aldermen. XI, HE laughs best who laughs at his own joke. XH Don’t hatch your chickens; it is safer to sell them in the shell. XIV, SPEECH is silver, but the coinage is debased. XV. Ir is well to be on with the new love before the old throws you over. W.L. MUCILAGE. A GOOD INVESTMENT. UMLEY: What a bore that young Brown is, He makes me sick. FEATHERLY : He never bores me. DuMLey : You are better natured than I am, then. FEATHERLY: No, I lent him five hundred dollars a year ago. HEY say Frenchmen never mean what they say, but there is one man who is always sincere and he can’t help himself. He was born St. Cyr, and nothing but an act of Congress can change him. HIS OWN IMPORTATION. “ H™. you something fine in the way of imported cigars?” inquired a Yorkville dude of the dealer. “Yes, sir,” the dealer replied. “* Them two-fer-five ‘ Jersey seedlings’ is having a big run. LOADED TO KILL — A midsummer apple-tree. comicbooks.com