Life, 1888-01-05 · page 11 of 16
Life — January 5, 1888 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine Page 11: Analysis **"The Coming Race"** (top) satirizes gender role anxieties of the era. A father laments young men adopting feminine fashion (curled hair, corsets, bracelets), while the mother notes girls now wear "mannish gear"—high collars and scarves. The joke: society fears gender presentation is collapsing, making sexes indistinguishable. This reflects late 19th-century anxieties about the "New Woman" and changing social norms. **"A Tall Story from the West"** mocks Western boosterism and tall tales. Charles Dudley Warner's account of California's miraculous soil is undercut by a comic anecdote: melons grow *so fast* they get bruised rolling across the ground—you need a *horse* to pick them. The satire targets exaggerated Western promotional claims and credulous Eastern readers. **"Remarkable Presence of Mind"** presents an Irish workman (Pat Hoolihan, indicated by dialect) who survives a fall by grabbing a telegraph wire, then drops deliberately—fearing the wire will break under his weight. The dark humor: his "presence of mind" is misplaced worry about property damage while falling to certain death.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIFE: THE COMING RACE. Father: HIS fast-degenerating age When young men crimp their hair in curls; Wear corsets, bracelets: I'll engage They'll dress ere long just like the girls! Mother: But there's some compensation, dear, Each girl a tailor now employs ;— High collars, scarfs and mannish gear :— Soon we can’t tell the girls from boys! Dexter Smith, A TALL STORY FROM THE WEST. “Tet most charming writer Charles Dudley Warner, in a delightful sketch of Southern California entitled “The Golden Hesperides,” in the current issue of the A¢/antic Monthly, has the following tale of the richness of the Western soil: There is nothing that will grow anywhere in the world—except, perhaps, certain great staples—that will not grow there in greater abundance and perfection: oranges, lemons, limes, peaches, nectarines, grapes, figs, almonds, olives, Madeira nuts, every edible vegetable knowh to woman—perhaps even grass might be raised by constant and excessive irrigation. Happening one night into the Pullman smoking-room, after days of travel through the Sahara wastes of New Mexico and Arizona, I chanced to hear fragments of a conversation between a man familiar with the region and a new-comer, who was evidently a little discouraged by the endless panorama of sand and dry sagebrush. “ Anything grow along here ?” “Everything, sir, everything! the most. productive soil on God Almighty’s earth. All it wants is water.” “Fruits 2” “Fruits? I should say so. Every sort that's known. This country, right here, is going to beat the world in fruits.” ‘Melons ?” “Well, yes ;” relapsing into candor and confession, ‘‘no ; the fact is, melons don't do so well here. They ain’t apt to be good. The vines grow so fast that the melons are bumped along over the ground and bruised.” «, “Ah 2?” without any sign of surprise. “Yes,” without a smile, and with evident desire to keep back no part of the truth, even if it were an afterthought ; ‘if you want to pick a melon in this country you have to get‘on horseback.” Horace Greeley should have heard this story. Had he been so fortunate he would doubtless have told the young men of the land to Go West and Learn the True Art of Journalism. REMARKABLE PRESENCE OF MIND. AT HOOLIHAN, while slating the roof of one of our highest buildings, lost his footing and fell. Over and over he went until within twenty-five feet of the pavement, when he struck a telegraph wire and managed to grasp it, first with one hand, then with both. “Hang on for your life, Pat!” shouted his fellow-workmen, and the by- standers rushed to the nearest dwelling for a mattress. Pat held on for a few seconds, when suddenly, with a cry of “ Shtand from Undher!” he dropped and lay senseless in the street. Whiskey was used and Pat finally came to. When asked why he did not hold out longer he feebly replied: “ Oi wuz afraid the woire ’ud break.” He recovered. comicbooks.com