Life, 1893-08-31 · page 7 of 18
Life — August 31, 1893 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis: Life Magazine, Page 135 This page contains satirical illustrations about undergraduate life and social conventions of the era. The top section, "The Man Who Had His Trousers Creased at Home," mocks the pretensions of maintaining proper dress standards—showing various scenarios of a man's carefully pressed trousers becoming disheveled through normal activities (sports, socializing, etc.). Below, "Noble Self-Sacrifice" jokes about romantic entanglement, while the lower cartoons depict physical mishaps ("Fracturing His Skull," "Raising the Devil"), illustrating common undergraduate dangers and misbehavior. The accompanying text by Henry A. Beers references familiar college traditions: football games, boat races, hazing, class distinctions, and compares the "earnestness" of Yale men versus Harvard's supposed indifference. The satire targets both youthful excess and class-consciousness in Ivy League culture.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A LOVELY PICTURE. I TELL YFZ, JIMMY LOOKED TOO LOVELY FOR ANY THINK IN HIS COFFIN. HE MAD A HARP O° LILIES LYIN’ FLAT ACROST HIS STUMMICK, AN’ HIS HAIR WUZ DID UP IN RINGLETS WOT COME DOWN TO HIS NECK. HE DIED WID A SMILE ON HIS MOUT’ AND HIS EARS WUZ WASHED WID BAY RUM AN? FILLED WID WIOLETS. The familiar elements of undergraduate story are here again, the Springfield foot-ball game and the New London boat race; chum’s sister, the old grad., class day flirtations, the legion of *“ muckers,” the proctor who makes himself a nuisance at exams., the policeman who is a zealous runner-in of sign-stealers, the girl with a blue ribbon who loves a crimson champion; the Cambridgeport tough (‘ Port chuck,” we believe, used to be the Harvard term, consude Planco); the Boston dinner party and the midnight rabbit of Wales, etc, etc. But these are eternally interesting to the alumnus, and we urge all college men to read at least “ The Plot against Bullam,” “ The Waking Nightmare of Hollis Holworthy " and “ The Harvard Legion at Philippi.” Bald-headed graduates of the sister university will note with interest the survival of the time-honored tradition that Yale men are “ earnest” while Harvard men are “ indifferent.” It seems, too, that now-a-days they call us fellows * * Under the Woolsey administration it was otherwise. Henry A. Beers. FRACTURING HIS SKULL. 135 THE MAN WHO HAD HIS TROUSERS CREASED AT HOME. NOBLE SELF-SACRIFICE. O Timkins has run away with Graymare's wife—and he was a friend of Graymare’s!” “He must have been.” “ [EDUTORIAL Rae “RAISING THE DEVIL,” comicbooks.com