Life, 1893-09-28 · page 13 of 16
Life — September 28, 1893 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several unrelated satirical items typical of Life magazine's format: **Theater Reviews** discuss new plays by Paul Arthur, Bob Hilliard, and Clay M. Greene—minor dramatists of the era. The satire mocks their work as derivative and their pretensions (the joke about adding the "Apollo Belvedere" statue references classical ideals these provincial playwrights supposedly lack). **The cartoons** are brief domestic jokes: - "An Eye to Improved Methods" satirizes a father teaching his daughter a cruel horse-training technique, and she naively suggests applying it to children—dark humor about parenting methods. - "His Advice" makes a crude joke about marriage curing appetite loss. - "Rural Enterprise" mocks a summer visitor asking a storekeeper for blue crewel thread; he dismisses it as unsellable in rural areas. These reflect Life's focus on social observation and gentle mockery of American manners, provincial attitudes, and urban sophistication gaps—typical humor for a middle-class readership of the 1890s-1900s.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: of his work seems to assure a popular success for the play. When his lines become sentimental or serious they also be- come mawkish and show the author's inability to rise above the plane of merit seen before in “A Midnight Bell.” The play is well cast and handsomely mounted. It can hardly hope to rival the run of Mr. Hoyt’s “ Trip to China- town,” but is likely to hold the boards at the Madison Square Theatre throughout the winter. * * . M®é RS, PAUL ARTHUR and Bob Hilliard are going i to storm the country in “ The Nominee.” They will certainly raise the standard of dress among the provincial dudes, and if they could only add the Apollo Belvedere to “GETTING SOME LIFE INTO HIM.” their combination there would not be an unsmashed female heart from here to 'Frisco. * . . R. CLAY M. GREENE, the dramatist, has gone to the Himalayas to shoot tigers. This seems rather a work of supererogation when the Tenderloin Precinct is so handy. Metcalfe. AN EYE TO IMPROVED METHODS. pares (to the seven-year-old Miss beside him, cutting the whip sharply through the air): See, Mary, how I make the horse go faster without striking him at all. MARY (én an eager tone of happy discovery): Papa, why don’t you spank us children in that way? HIS ADVICE. OUNG MAN: Doctor, I have no appetite. Doctor: Then why don't you marry the girl? RURAL ENTERPRISE. Summer Girl: Have yOu ANY BLUE? Storekeeper N'T NO USE KEEPING THAT STUFF, ““CREWEL WORK DONE RY HAND,” comicbooks.com