Life, 1887-09-22 · page 11 of 16
Life — September 22, 1887 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine Page 165 Analysis This page contains three separate satirical pieces: 1. **"No Cause for Alarm"**: A visual joke about a nervous tourist in a rickety boat. The boatman casually mentions three men drowned from this very boat last Thursday—but reassures the tourist they were recovered at high tide, implying no real danger. The satire mocks both the tourist's anxiety and the boatman's casual attitude toward maritime deaths. 2. **"The Bacon Myth"**: A verse debate about whether Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays. The speaker (Ignatius) ridicules this theory through wordplay and logic, pointing out that calling Bacon "the Swan of Avon" makes no sense. This satirizes the ongoing scholarly dispute about Shakespeare's authorship. 3. **"What He Wanted to Know"** and **"Got There in Time"**: Brief humorous anecdotes—one mocking an old gentleman's confusion about a police call-box system, another about an elderly woman's befuddled time-sense. The final item jokes about German language conventions ("Herr" vs. "Him"). These represent typical Life magazine humor: wordplay, social observation, and gentle mockery of human folly.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
165 NO CAUSE FOR ALARM. Timid Tourist Boatman; NOT TER MY KNOWLEDGE. Y¥, CAP'N, THIS ROAT SEEMS VERY SHAKY: WAS ANYBODY EVER LOST IN HER? THERE WAS THREE MEN DROWNDED FROM HER LAST THURSDAY, BUT WE POUND THEM ALL THE NEXT HIGH TIDE. THE BACON MYTH. H, good gracious, Ignatius! , How you take on About Bacon ! It’s audacious ! There's not much fear ‘That Shakespeare Stole his thunder From a dunder- Head like Bacon ! You're mistaken ! The fact that Bacon was up in grammar By no means makes him daddy of the drama; And simply that he’s pat in Latin, Doesn't show ‘at t ! He's a poet. A fig For Ig.! Then, too, Ignatius (So rapacious), If Bake Wrote Shake, Who's the Swan Of Avon? You never heard Of Bacon Being taken For a bird, Did you, Ig. ? It's infra dig. This theory, my. deary. Pooh-pooh ! “‘aisez-vous. WHAT HE WANTED TO KNOW. A GENTLEMAN of the old school, whom everybody knows and who knows everybody, was observed one day last week intently studying the Herzog police box at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Thirty-first Street. Suddenly he pushed the red button and turned the crank twenty times, according to instructions. A few moments later three policemen came dashing up the street. The first, breathless from his running, cried : “ Well, what's up?” “ What's the matter ?” asked the second. “Who's hurt?” queried the third. “ Really, gentlemen,” replied the old man, “ nothing is up; nothing is the matter, and no one is hurt; but,” pointing to the words: Herzog Teleseme System, “1 only wanted to know what Herzog this is?” He was not informed. THE two-legged crank is the hardest to turn. GOT THERE IN TIME. “ Wit time is it, young man?" asked an old lady, all out of breath, as she struggled into the station. “One thirty, ma’am.” “Thank goodness! I'm in time fer the four o'clock train, then,” she said, as she deposited a carpet-bag and a couple of bird-cages on the floor; “this travelin’ about an’ ketchin’ railroad trains is upsettin’ to the narvous system.” HERE is something very “ Dutchy" about the Ger- mans. They speak of a gentleman as Herr, instead of Him. comicbooks.com