Life, 1891-03-05 · page 3 of 16
Life — March 5, 1891 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page, Volume XVIII, Number 427 This page contains seasonal humor about March in New York City. The opening essay describes March's "uncertainty" — unpredictable weather, St. Patrick's Day celebrations, and the transition toward spring. The cartoon features a dialogue between "Brevet Angel" and "St. Peter," with St. Peter expressing homesickness for New York despite being in heaven. This is gentle satire on New Yorkers' fierce local pride. Below are two comic sketches: one showing a man asking about shoe repair costs (with dialogue about mending soles and heels), and another labeled "City Father" depicting what appears to be a wedding ceremony scene with social commentary about marriage customs. The overall tone is lighthearted urban satire typical of Life's satirical approach to American life and New York City culture.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
COME LAMB-LIKE-H Now comes the month of uncertainty, of budding crocuses and blizzard fame; of fluttering skirts and evasive hats ; of St. Patrick's Day and Hibernian headaches; of incoming lion and departing lamb and vice versa. Now come the days when hirsute appendages make their appearance on our Winter trousers and our seal-skin sacks grow bald in spots. The days when we get the first touches of “that tired feeling " which later on develops into spring fever. The days when the buckwheat cake begins to pall and the sausage loses its savor. The days of Lent and attempts at abstinence, This is the month in which we convert our government bonds into Spring bonnets, is is the Is there any dirt in the streets in REVET ANGE there? St, PETER: B. A. (weartly) : become homesick. Not a speck. Take me back to New York. I'd “Do YOU THINK THOSE SHOES ARE WORTH MENDING 2” “VELL, YAS, IF I ZOLE AND HEEL TEM, AND PUT NEW UPPERS ON TEM, THE STRINGS ARE STILL GooT.” month that in the credulity of youth we believed was the first of Spring. The month of porous plasters, The month of vanishing wood-piles and opulent coal-dealers. The i] month when our fore-handed wife begins her annual search for a house better than the one we live in. In short, this is March—the darnedest, meanest, cussedest month in the whole year, But it is also the month in which Congress adjourns. City Father (Tammany—a little nervous at his first performance of the marriage ceremony): 1 PRONOUNCE YOU MAN AND WIFE— AND—ER—(reminded by the resolute bearing of the parties of an office more familiar to him)—MAY VE BEST MAN WIN! comicbooks.com