Life, 1891-11-19 · page 5 of 24
Life — November 19, 1891 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page (Volume XVIII, Number 464) This page contains satirical commentary on American Thanksgiving traditions. The opening section mocks the holiday's incompatibility with American political and social realities—corrupt government, unstable finances, and disillusioned workers make genuine thanksgiving impossible. The text specifically ridicules the turkey as a symbol, suggesting even the bird lacks faith in providence. The cartoon depicts men with horses at what appears to be a riding school, illustrating the caption's joke about class pretensions: wealthy individuals practicing horsemanship while dismissing a horse named "James" as unsuitable because it's from a school stable. The remaining sections present brief humorous dialogues about charitable giving and romantic ideals, maintaining the magazine's satirical tone about American social hypocrisy and materialism during what appears to be the early 20th century.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
NUMBER 464. S are the sad, cold, deeply pathetic days when the prosperous and well nourished turkey bids a short farewell to his family, and, like Louis XVI., lays his unwilling head beneath the axe. As was the reign of terror to the aristocrat, so is November to the gobbler. Like the insatiate gullotine, the American platter now clamors for its victims. Praise and thanksgiving cannot be properly rendered on an empty stomach. The American has cause for thanksgiving. Not so much because his government is corrupt, and his finances unstable, or that he has no art, architecture, drama or music of his own; nor because his aristocracy is comic and his workers dissatisfied. But because he is so constituted that he can sit down to his turkey with as much enjoyment as if he were ‘WHAT HORSE Is THIS, JAMES 2" “It's THE Scnoot MakM, Miss.” “Tie Scnoo. Marm !" “Yes, Miss, MasTerR ROBERT CALLS HER THAT BECAUSE SHE STRIKES BEHIND.” really what he thinks he is. providence are unmistakable. The turkey, possibly, has no faith in providence. If so, he is an impious bird, and should be slaughtered, plucked, and sold at a reasonable figure to satisfy the religious cravings of the thanksgiving American. In this the workings of a kind EFFECT AND CAUSE. RS, TROTTER: Oh, Henry, do throw away that cigar. . It is something awful. (After a pause) Do you know that Mrs. Barlow saves money for her husband by buying his cigars ? Tro (grimly): [thought as much—this is a cigar that Barlow gave me. A SAVING CLAUSE. E: Old Smithers, the misanthrope, turned _ philanthropist before he died, and said he would leave all his money for the relief suffering humanity. Did he endow a hospital in his will ? HE: No. He left is fortune to the In- ebriate Asylum, with the condition that the income drink for the inmates. ACK ROUNDER: J Isn't Miss Belle a beauty ? Miss A.: ¥ But you know beauty is only skin deep. J. ROUNDER: Well, I'm no cannibal. That's deep enough for me. be spent in comicbooks.com