Life, 1891-02-19 · page 12 of 14
Life — February 19, 1891 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explanation for Modern Readers This page contains editorial satire about journalistic plagiarism. Life magazine is mocking the *Evening Sun* newspaper for claiming credit for witty content that actually originated elsewhere—specifically, Life itself and the San Francisco *Argonaut*. The joke is pointed: Life accuses the *Evening Sun* of lacking the intelligence to recognize good writing when it appears in their own pages, yet praising it once another publication points it out. Life then offers a biting suggestion: the *Evening Sun* should stop lecturing readers about English grammar mistakes when their own editorials violate basic rules (like "splitting infinitives"). The top cartoon—"Not One of the Four Hundred"—satirizes social pretension through a dialogue where a man corrects another that Abraham (the biblical patriarch) had no hyphen in his name, implying the corrector cares more about genealogical status ("four hundred" referred to New York's social elite) than accuracy. The other illustrations and brief comic exchanges appear unrelated to the main editorial dispute.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
NOT ONE OF THE FOUR HUNDRED. Mr. Lypson-Browne: ABRAHAM WAS A PATRIARCH, WASN'T HE? Daubson: No. Mr. Lypson-Browne: No? Daubson: NO; ME MAD NO NYPHEN IN HIS NAME. UR ever fresh and always entertaining contempo- rary, the Evening Sun, says: The editors of our brisk contemporary Lire have been betrayed into a self-exposure which they will be thankful to have brought to their own attention. They print things which first appear in the Frening Sun, Woman About Town, crediting them to the San Francisco Argonaut. Their appearance then compels two inferences, both pain- ful. First, that the Argonaut copies them without credit, an obliquity of conduct which all must deplore; second, that the Li nan had just the wit to discern a good thing when pointed out for him by the Argonaut, but lacked enough to detect it when it passed beneath his own nose. The first attests bad morals, but the second is more mor- tifying, Lire is glad that the journalistic child of Mr. Dana’s old age has spoken of this matter. We have once or twice noticed in its columns especially clever things credited to provincial publications. If the alert and con- scientious editors of the Evening Sun had spent a week or two in looking up the pedigrees of the scintillations they would have found that they first shone in the columns of Lire, Naturally they were appreciated by the man on the ‘ning Sun who has just the wit to dis- cern a good thing when pointed out for him by his coun- try contemporaries but lacks enough to detect it when it passes beneath his own nose. The first attests bad morals, but the paragraph we quote is more Pharisaical. And, by the way, here’s a hint for the ening Sun man who writes leading editorials on the mistakes in English made by deluded people who write letters to that journal. He should organize the young men of the A STAB IN THE DARK, Evening Sun into a class in rhetoric and give them daily lectures on that always entertaining subject “The Violation of the Infinitive,” illustrated with examples from the editorial columns of both the Suns. ILES: I noticed that your friend had his coat collar but- toned up. A cold, I suppose. MERRITT: Oh,no. He was calling on his girl and wore the tie she made him for Christmas. I BELIEVE IF IT WASN'T FOR MY HATEFUL MONEY, JULIAN WOULD HAVE PROPOSED LOXG aco, Don‘r you THINK $0?" “Yes, —fo me.” comicbooks.com