Life, 1891-10-15 · page 3 of 16
Life — October 15, 1891 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Creating an Impression" — Life Magazine Satire This cartoon satirizes restaurant deception and class pretense. The scene shows a waiter and restaurant staff attempting to impress diners with fake refinement—serving "plain quail on toast" while calling it something fancier because actual quail is unavailable. The dialogue reveals the con: a customer asks for change for fifty cents, and the druggist (apparently the restaurant's proprietor) promises a quarter back—suggesting overcharging and petty fraud. The satire targets turn-of-the-century dining establishments that misrepresented cheap dishes as haute cuisine to wealthy patrons. It mocks both the dishonest restaurateurs and the pretentious diners fooled by such performances, exposing the gap between appearance and reality in social aspiration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Le scope an sORHA) nexpensiy| VOLUME XVIII. SOAP ilar in qual. world «re. Yankee" point amlike— lather icinal and erties. > uRiTY— ays. refully se or Roses licate acd umes. No spared to very finest ced. ase pectal no- CREATING AN IMPRESSION. Chollie (glancing at bill of fare) : GUESS WE'LL HAVE SOME PLAIN. Waiter: We Wave. QUAIL o: TOAST, sR, Chollie (sotto voce): SuvT UP! NM ORDER QUAIL ON ToAST, IF THEY HAD IT, BELLA, BUT THEY HAVEN'T, appari ALTHOUGH IT ISN'T ON THE BILL. ENTLY, so T a\Y) Gesne said Mrs, Barker, “I wish you would step I over and see how old Mrs. Jones is this morning.” Un a few minutes Mary returns.) “Sure she's just Seventy-two years, seven months and two days old.” $ ‘CAN 1 get change for this half dollar 2" he asked, “You can. Plied the retail druggist, whom the reader has alres nized.” Twill give you a quarter for it,” re- ady recog- comicbooks.com