Life, 1888-06-21 · page 12 of 18
Life — June 21, 1888 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine Page 356: Victorian-Era Social Satire This page collects brief humorous vignettes mocking middle and upper-class social conventions: **"A Small Dividend"** satirizes Irish immigrants (indicated by dialect: "Faix," "mesilf") as petty criminals who rob each other. **"At Bar Harbor"** (an exclusive resort) depicts a flirtation where the man makes an unsolicited physical advance, which she welcomes—satirizing courtship norms where such presumption was socially acceptable. **The graveyard cartoon** jokes that an old man sees no elderly graves because the cemetery is newly established, implying he's remarkably old. **"Novelists to Dine"** quotes author Julian Hawthorne's tongue-in-cheek challenge: he'll host America's profitable novelists lavishly, betting the bill costs only $25—mocking both wealthy authors' pretensions and the publishing industry's economics. **"Cause and Effect"** blames illness on a grocer's poor-quality cigar, satirizing both working-class superstition and product quality. The page exemplifies Life's formula: quick satirical jabs at contemporary manners, immigration, class, and commerce.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A SMALL DIVIDEND. IRST TRAMP: Well, how much did ye get out of the felly ? SECOND TRAMP: Faix, only enough for mesilf. FIRST TRAMP: And is this ‘de way yer stand in wid me, Mickey? SECOND TRAMP: Sure, all Oi got was a kick. Ye can take yer share of that, if ye want it. AT BAR HARBOR. E: Why, it is growing quite dark! You can hardly dis- tinguish the people at the hotel. SHE: And rather cool, too. I ought to have something around me. HE (with a familiar move- ment of the arm): That's so! “ HY do they all laugh at that fellow’s humor? It is not real humor.” “True, but it can’t be distin- guished from the genuine. HAT one swallow does not Old Gentleman: STRANGE! I DON’T SEE A GRAVE OF A PERSON AS OLD as I aM. make a summer may be His Daughter: WHY OF COURSE NOT, FATHER, YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS IS A COMPARA- true, but one mosquito can make TIVELY NEW GRAVEYARD. it hot enough for anybody. NOVELISTS TO DINE. M*. JULIAN HAWTHORNE extends this liberal invitation through the medium of Belford's Magazine: “*T will engage to entertain at dinner, at a round table five feet in diameter, all the American novelists who make more than a thousand dollars a year out of the royalty on any one of their novels, and to give them all they want to eat and drink, and three of the best cigars apiece after- wards, and a hack to take them home in; and I will agree to forfeit a thousand dollars to the Home for Imbeciles if twenty-five dollars does not liquidate the bill and leave enough over to buy a cloth copy of each of the works in question, with the author’s autograph on the fly-leaf. One hack would be sufficient, and would allow of their putting up their feet on the seat in front of them.” CAUSE AND EFFECT. ROCER: See here, you haven't settled your bill yet. Last month you paid promptly on the last day of the month. is CUSTOMER: Yes, and you gave me a cigar! GROCER: Well? CusTOMER: Why, I've been sick ever since and (At am East-side Picnic.) unable to work. “ELLA CASSIDY, WILL YER HOOF DIS WALTZ WID ME?” SOCIAL CUSTOMS. comicbooks.com