Life, 1890-06-12 · page 16 of 20
Life — June 12, 1890 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three unrelated humorous sketches typical of early 20th-century American satire: **Top sketch**: A man returning to Milwaukee after five years in Germany jokes he'll feel "at home" there for the *first time*—satirizing German-American immigrant communities in Milwaukee, suggesting they were so insular that the city felt more German than American. **Middle sketch**: A child mishears "set the spanker" (a sailing term) as something frightening, playing on innocent misinterpretation for comedic effect. **Bottom sketch**: Uses a racial stereotype (dialect and character name suggest a Black servant) for humor about eggs intended for hatching, not eating—a simple wordplay joke dependent on the era's offensive caricature conventions. The illustrations on the left appear to be sequential narrative panels, possibly from a longer story, but their specific content is unclear from this reproduction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
She: YOU HAVE SPENT FIVE YEARS ABROAD! WHY YOU WILL FEEL ALMOST A STRANGER IN YOUR NATIVE CITY—WILL YOU NOT? He: ON THE CONTRARY, I WILL FEEL AT HOME THERE FOR THE FIRST TIME—YOU SEE, I HAVE SPENT THOSE FIVE YEARS IN GERMANY AND I RETURN TO MILWAUKEE, HE WAS FRIGHTENED. : H, no, let’s not go!" exclaimed the little boy, as his nurse proposed going on board a yacht, and \\, then the youngster burst into tears. . “Why, Willie, what in the world is the matter?” “1 just h-h-heard one m-m-man tell another to set the s-s-spanker.” NOT A_ SERIOUS OBJECTION. OU are welcome to these eggs, Uncle Ben, but I am afraid some of them are bad.” “Oh, dat don't make no differ’nce, boss, I ain't gwine to eat ‘em; dey’s fer settin’.” “cc Uneasy lies the head that wears grandfather's hat. comicbooks.com