Life, 1894-07-19 · page 10 of 16
Life — July 19, 1894 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Commentary on the Page This page from *Life* magazine presents a glossary of contemporary social stereotypes and character types, accompanied by three cartoon vignettes illustrating the absurdities of modern life. The cartoons mock early 20th-century urban society: the first shows theft of hanging laundry; the second depicts "Mr. Blumenstein" horrified by domestic chaos; the third illustrates a satirical "self-defending dummy"—a mechanical contraption designed to protect against intrusion. The glossary entries define period-specific social types (servant-girls, fiancées, strikers, dandies) with biting commentary. The satire targets class distinctions, pretension, and social hypocrisy characteristic of the era. The cartoons use visual humor to reinforce these textual jabs at contemporary manners and social expectations.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
42 > LIFE: LIFE’S GLOSSARY OF EVERY-DAY EXPRESSIONS. COMPILED WITH(OUT) THE AID OF THE EDITORS OF THE CENTURY DICTIONARY, ERVANT-GIRL: Formerly a young woman who per- formed domestic services for pay; later, a female, usually ignorant and impertinent, to whom Americans bow down in subjection and who enjoys _privi- leges and immunities unknown to other classes of citizens. POLICEMAN: A person of foreign birth who carries a club with which he frequently assaults other persons. FIANCE (Der. Modern French.) A female person who wears conspicuously a gold ring in which is set a solitary diamond of size dependent upon the means or credit of some person of the opposite se: TROLLEY-CAR: A_ nineteenth century device for maiming or killing. STRIKER: A deluded person who has transferred his right to labor to a union or walking delegate (q. v.). WALKING DELEGATE: So called because he rarely walks. An idle person who subsists upon the contributions of deluded workingmen; an incensor of discord. RooTerR: A strong-lunged and noisy devotce of baseball. GRIPMAN: A cruel misanthrope in charge of the motive power of a cable-car, Dupe: An almost obsolete expression used to designate a youth characterized more by clothes than brains. VIVISECTIONIST : Formerly a scientist who sought to make anatomi- cal discoveries by the dissection of living animals; now, a character who seeks to gain applause by needless and unspeakable cruelty to defenceless creatures, BATHING-SuIT: A garment which shapely ladies use in summer in place of the décolleté gown of winter. AUTHOR: A person who writes books so that publishers and printers may live. CLus: A place of refuge from mothers-in-law and other domestic sorrows. Mopesty: A virtue unknown to this generation. COCKTAIL: A restorative beverage of some value when taken next morning. PHILADELPHIAN: An unburied corpse. Epitor: A specialist in cases of cacoethes scribend?, SOUBRETTE: A young woman with bleached hair and vaguely con- nected with the theatre. CONGRESSMAN: A member of either branch of Congress; hence, a person of limited intelligence. DEBONAIR: A word with great rhyming possibilities and generally used by amateur poets in distress. Janitor: A first cousin to the Czar of Russia. Doctor: A person who, when you aré ill, comes and guesses what is the matter with you. SLEEPING-CAR: A wheeled vehicle for the transportation of bad air between distant points. SNAKES: Imaginary reptiles visible only to persons who haye over-stimulated. PAWN-BROKER: A person whom you do not care to know but whom you are some- times anxious to call upon. Metcalfe. MR. BLUMENSTEIN WAS FILLED WITH HORROR, RUT HE DEVISED A SCHEME FOR A SELF-DEFENDING DUMMY WHICH comicbooks.com