Life, 1893-09-07 · page 13 of 14
Life — September 7, 1893 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several satirical pieces typical of early Life magazine: **"Don't Blame Him"**: A brief joke about a cigar—one man gives another a poor-quality cigar, and the recipient doesn't blame the giver because the giver himself is unpleasant company, making the bad cigar fitting. **"Prophetic"**: A darker joke about courtship and money. A young man courts a woman whose father encourages the match—not out of approval, but because she'll inherit the father's money when he dies, making her a more valuable match. **"A Needle Woman"**: A poem mocking the disconnect between a woman's delicate needlework (embroidering pastoral scenes) and her complete inability to perform basic domestic tasks like sewing a button—a common trope critiquing women's impracticality. **"The Original Roof Garden"**: A large satirical illustration depicting a chaotic, carnivalesque rooftop scene with numerous figures carousing, likely satirizing New York's famous roof gardens as venues of excess and moral looseness. The page reflects turn-of-century American attitudes toward gender, class, and urban entertainment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Then am I to undehstand that ‘ouah consent?” “What's that? Oh! I forgot. Certainly ! Go and marry her when- like. She has saved my Sir?” “You see, I was half crazy try- ing to think of a name for the new apartment house I have just built. Lovina will do to a T.” And’as the son faded gently out of the room, the old man whispered over the sweet name again and again, and rubbed his huge, hard palms together till they gave forth a sound like that of the sand-paper boards they manipulate in the wings when the pretty soubrette is dancing a double shuffle. DION’T BLAME HIM. ONES: Robbins gave me this J cigar. Brown: I don’t blame him. PROPHETIC. ‘HAS SHE GIVEN YOU ANY ENCOURAGEMENT ?” “On, yes! SHE says SHE WILL HER FATHER'S MONEY WHEN HE DIE: 157 A NEEDLE WOMAN. > HE works upon the tidy white In manner strangely neat. The figures which the damask light Are picturesquely sweet. She makes a peaceful lamb or two A-frisking on the hill, And flowers red, and gold, and blue, Beside « wayside rill. The silken dove she does with taste In tones of pearl and rose, And vines that softly twine in chaste Arcadian repose. And yet it makes her husband rave To think his darling wife A button can't sew on to save Her sweet and precious life. RK, AM. OBBLE: Don’t you like the laundryman I recommended to you? STONE: No. hat’s the trouble ? just my size, THE ORIGINAL ROOF GARDEN. comicbooks.com