Life, 1895-02-21 · page 13 of 18
Life — February 21, 1895 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page (page 125) contains two separate pieces of satire: **Upper text**: A humorous complaint about actor Herbert Tree being stranded by a blizzard while traveling to Washington for a benefit performance. The writer mockingly suggests Tree arm himself with a rabbit's foot (a folk superstition charm) to avoid further "annoyance"—sarcastically implying Americans deliberately sabotage British visitors. **Illustration and caption below**: A sketch of two fashionably dressed women on a Philadelphia street, with dialogue mocking Philadelphia's reputation for being slow and dull. One woman boasts of Philadelphia's "lively" social scene; the other deadpans that it's actually quite slow, citing as "evidence" that a woman there recently died at age 121—implying life moves so slowly that people live extraordinarily long lives there. The humor relies on period stereotypes about regional American character (Philadelphia as staid and slow-paced) and British-American cultural friction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIFE- over to Washington with his company to appear at a benefit and we spring a blizzard on him so he can’t get back to New York in time for his own performance. We beg to extend to Mr. Tree our expressions of sincere regret and to assure him that all this is really no fault of America; also to beg that he will forgive those little occurrences which really were unintentional and had no personal application. If Mr. Tree would provide himself with the left hind-foot of a rabbit secured in a graveyard at midnight during the full of the moon, he would very likely escape further annoyance. All Americans carry them, and it is too bad that some of his British friends had not informed Mr. Tree of the fact before he came to this country, 125 NE_ remarkable consequence of the ‘Sans Géne craze is the number of actors who are beginning to look like Napoleon. We do not know whether this comes from unconscious sympathy or a due regard to prospective engagements with Napoleonic barn-storming companies, but it is a fact that one cannot throw a stone on the Rialto without striking an actor who is either posing, wearing his baldness, or tackling a free-lunch in the true Napoleonic manner. The free-lunch imitation is, of course, after the manner of Napoleon's early days, but is perhaps more suc- cessful than the others. It is too bad that Napoleon cannot come back and see himself as actors imitate him. Metcalfe. ; | ee “A LIVELY VISIT IN PHILADELPHIA! THEN THEY ARE NOT AS SLOW AS WE HEAR THEY ARE?” “OH, YES THEY ARE! WHY, JUST THE OTHER DAY A WOMAN OVER THERE DIDN'T DIE TILL SHE WAS 121 YEARS OLD.”