Life, 1893-12-28 · page 9 of 53
Life — December 28, 1893 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explanation for Modern Readers This *Life* magazine page contains two distinct pieces of satire: **Top section ("A Very Fly Scientist")**: A humorous essay mocking vivisectionists—scientists who perform experiments on living animals. The text sarcastically praises Nature for creating the fly as a "useful servant" while criticizing the "brutality" of systematic animal torture in laboratories. A small illustration shows a fly under an umbrella. **Bottom cartoon ("Is It Always the Fault of the Cable Car?")**: A San Francisco scene depicting a cable car accident. A woman lies on the tracks while pedestrians observe; the inset shows her apparently crushed. The caption suggests the cable car is being blamed, sarcastically questioning whether it's always responsible for such incidents—implying perhaps pedestrian carelessness is the actual fault. Both pieces critique contemporary attitudes: scientific cruelty and urban safety negligence.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A VERY FLY SCIENTIST. CIENTIFIC FLY (concluding a lec- ture): So you see, fly ladies and fly gentiemen, how all the rich resources of Nature have from the first been in- tended solely for the comfort and conven- ience of the fly race. As wild animals perfected means of defence against us, and as plants were beginning to develop traps for our destruction, kindly Nature brought forth a ponderous creature called man, whose mission was to catch and tame the animals to our purpose, destroy the dangerous plants, and in their place raise an abundance of food suited to our In addition, as history progressed, they erected warm and sunny abodes in which we could turn Winter into Summer when so disposed. For a time the advocates of ‘the revolting theory that all things come by chance were able to point, with galling triumph, to the painful fact that horses, though tamed, were still danger- But how low have our opponents fallen ? Almost before we could frame an answer our silent slave, man, guided only by original design, has moved up to those murderous horses and cut off their S A TRIFLE UNDER needs, ous to feast upon, Lor.—The Fifth Avenue stage horses, 409 NO MERCY HERE. OVERS of the horse should know that after this useful servant has outlived his financial value the medical students can yet get lots of fun out of him. A dead horse, of course, is not interesting, but by careful management he can be kept alive through quite a series of amusing experiments. You can dissect his feet, for instance, without immediately endangering his life. The indescribable agony caused by these operations seems to act as a pleasant stimulant upon the amiable experimenter. The eye is also an interesting organ to dissect while the nerves are yet alive. A very little knowledge of the vivisector’s deeds makes it easy to understand why students of medicine should be so much “ tougher" as a class than the students of anything else. It is difficult to conceive a course of training more brutalizing than the systematic and needless torturing of one’s helpless friends. It is but a short step from the quivering nerves of a four-footed servitor to experiments upon a human being. RAG THE WEATHER. I know a thing or two. You sly dog ! IS IT ALWAYS THE FAULT OF THE CABLE CAR? comicbooks.com