Life, 1893-02-23 · page 1 of 16
Life — February 23, 1893 — page 1: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine, February 23, 1893 This page features a section titled "POPULAR CRIMINALS" with a sketch of a woman in winter clothing and the caption: "I believe policemen are a set of thieves. So do I. One of them robbed us of our cook the other day." The satire appears to target public distrust of police corruption in 1890s New York. The joke plays on two meanings of "robbed"—stealing valuables versus taking away a domestic servant, likely through arrest or coercion. The woman's complaint conflates serious criminal suspicion of police with the domestic inconvenience of losing household help, mocking both the speaker's trivial concern and the broader contemporary perception that police were themselves criminals or thieves. It's social commentary on urban anxieties and class relations of the Gilded Age.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
VOLUME XxXI. NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 23, 1893. g NUMBER 530. Entered at the New York Post Office as Second-Class Mail Matter. Copyright, 183, by MircHett & Mitre. POPULAR CRIMINALS. “T BELIEVE POLICEMEN ARE A SET OF THIEVES.” “So po I. ONE OF THEM ROBBED US OF OUR COOK THE OTHER bay.”