Life, 1893-04-06 · page 7 of 16
Life — April 6, 1893 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 221 This page contains a serialized story titled "Going to the Theatre," depicting a domestic scene where a woman prepares to go out, carefully securing her home—locking doors, adjusting the gas, and even leaving instructions with her husband about the baby. The main cartoon at top shows a theater box with well-dressed patrons, likely satirizing upper-class theater attendance and social pretense. Below are small illustrations and text snippets labeled "Tom Hall," "Following Suit," and references to "rash affair" and "scarlet fever"—these appear to be separate jokes or story captions. Without clearer context about specific 1910s-era events or personalities referenced, the primary satire seems to target domestic anxiety and the elaborate precautions required for respectable women to leave home, poking fun at both marital relations and social conventions of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
First Fair One: SO FRED AND ARTHUR BOTH PROPOSED TO HER. WHICH WAS THE LUCKY ONE? The Other Fair One: 1 Don't KNOW YET, FRED MARRIED HER. GOING TO THE THEATRE. Then she locked the outside door again, tried it and they ~HE had kissed the baby for the last time until she re- Started. turned, and then kissed him again. She had carefully | They had proceeded two blocks and her husband had locked every door in the house and all the windows. She almost forgotten his craving for a good round swear, when had turned the gas to the exact point at which it was to be she suddenly stopped. left until her return. She had attended to the furnace and “John,” she said, warned Bridget not to meddle with it for fear of fire. She “I must go back and had explained to that functionary the use of the burglar tell Bridget to be sure alarm, the fire alarm and the watchman’s rattle. She had not to wake the baby put the cat and dog in the cellar and had wrapped a news- up unless he wakes paper around the canary’s cage. She had put a gossamer _ himself.” over her new sealskin sacque, although it was starlight, be- Tom Hall. cause as she informed her husband “She never expected to get another one—they would end in the poor-house she EPENDS on the knew.” And then she was ready. whether.—The She locked the inside door and tried it. engagement. Then she locked the outside door and tried it. — Then she opened the outside door and tried the inside RASH affair — = door again. Scarlet fever. “ FOLLOWING SUIT.” comicbooks.com