Life, 1893-12-21 · page 12 of 18
Life — December 21, 1893 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Tenacity of Life" — Life Magazine Satire This page contains two satirical pieces mocking pretentious conversation at the turn of the 20th century. The main text features characters Longbow and Whoppers at a free lunch counter (a common saloon practice of the era), engaged in one-upmanship through increasingly exaggerated anecdotes about animal resilience. Longbow's graphic lobster story—describing a cook's brutal butchering of a live lobster that continues thrashing after being bisected—is presented as pseudo-scientific discourse. The satire targets masculine posturing: men attempting to impress through gruesome, dubious "natural history" facts while eating cheap free food. The small cartoon "Overheard at Dancing School" satirizes social hypocrisy among the upper classes. The caption suggests that when an unpretty girl receives male attention, she must be "fast" (promiscuous)—mocking both society's shallow beauty standards and the moral judgments applied to women's behavior. Both pieces ridicule pretension masquerading as knowledge and propriety masking cruelty.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
400 TENACITY OF LIFE. T is an astonishing thing how some species of animals will cling to life,” said Longbow, as he hesitated between the choice of acoffee-berry and a clove. “1 read in an authentic work, a short time ago, that an alligator will go on fighting for hours after the brain has been removed from its body.” * How long have you been study ing Natural History?” asked Whoppers, with a rapid but com- prehensive survey of the free lunch tabl “Not long,” answered Long- bow. * But 1 was thinking of the extraordinary w: lobster 1 saw yesterday held on to his time on earth. I went into the Arcadia and ordered a broiled live lobster. After I had ordered it, 1 told old Shuffles, the head waiter, that the last one I had was evidently boiled several days before it was broiled. ‘Come with me," he and took me into the kitchen, There stood the cook, with uplifted knife, over an enor- mous green-bodied lobster that was. frothing at the gills with passion. The knife came down and Mr. Lob spread himself out in two equal divisions, but. was livelier than ever. Two more blows severed the claws from the body, but each claw continued to gnash its teeth with rage. One caught hold of the knife and tried to get it away from the cook, but the blade was so sharp it had to let go. In another min- ute it was writhing on the silver grill with a vigor that would have OVERHEARD AT DANCING SCHOOL. “cc shamed any one of Mr. Fox's most ‘SGLADYS MAS LOTS OF ATTENTION, ALTHOUGH SHE IS NOT REALLY PRETTY.” active martyrs, I thought the strug- “YES, AND YOU MAY DEPEND UPON IT, WHEN A GIRL HAS LOTS OF ATTENTION AND 1S gle would never end, but at last, NOT PRETTY THAT SHE 1S FAST.” mn Iii, igafy SHH @ Mee sigh, he gave up the ghost, and, as he did so, blushed Vii il a rosy red with shame at what he thought his weakness.” lh eu “i “ What'll y’have ?” asked Whoppers, tersely. . * responded Longbow, a gleam of triumph in his eye. “ As you say,” said Whoppers. as he paid for the drinks, * lobsters are very tenacious of life. But they're not in it with eels.” this another fish story?” asked Longbow cynically, but with a spicion of approaching discomfiture. “Well, I suppose an cel is a fish as much as a lobster,” retorted A DANGEROUS CONCLUSION TO DRAW, Whoppers, curtly, “But I was going to give you a specimen ih, * comicbooks.com