Life, 1895-03-14 · page 13 of 18
Life — March 14, 1895 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct satirical pieces targeting American society and culture circa the 1880s-90s: **Theater Critique**: The main text reviews Mr. Crane's Fifth Avenue Theatre production and Miss Morton's play, suggesting that American audiences (particularly New York's) prefer trivial entertainment over quality drama. The author dismissively compares Morton unfavorably to Shakespeare. **"A Slight Offence"**: A joke mocking Irish peasants' casual violence. An Englishman discovers a man is being hanged for "making game" (joking) about his landlord—satirizing Irish-English tensions and portraying rural Irish as prone to brutal overreaction. **"First New Yorker" Joke**: Mocks Chicago by suggesting its residents look perpetually disgusted—a regional jab at Midwestern cities versus New York sophistication. **Bottom Section**: A brief commentary on competing news agencies (United Press vs. Associated Press) constantly switching allegiances, and a final quip about vanity being worse than drunkenness. The illustrated cartoons support these satirical themes with period engravings.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
TL WONDER HOW THAT FE! TY things are demonstrated by Mr. Crane’s successful engagement atthe Fifth Avenue Theatre. One is that the Star Theatre has fallen outside the theatrical breastworks, which are now marked on the south by Twenty-third Street. The other is that if Miss Morton's work as a dramatic author is to be taken as a standard of feminine possibilities in the play-writing line, William Shakespeare's laurels are still safe from any incursions of the fairer sex. This does not mean that Miss Morton's play is not amusing and in a measure effective, but it must be apparent to any spectator that she has missed many opportunities which in stronger hands would have been made valuable. The piece is of the trifling character which Mr. Crane's experience with * The Merry Wives” has doubtless convinced him is the only thing that will succeed with the American—and more especially the New York public. Metcalfe. A SLIGHT OFFENCE. A \ English tourist arrived in an Irish town, where a man was about to be hung for shooting his landlord. Ignorant of the cause of the gathering he questioned one of the peasants. GLISHMAN > PEASAN ENGLISHMA What is going on to-day, my man? They're goin’ t'hang a man, sor. What is he to be hanged for ? t for a bit uv a joke, sor. Hang a man for a joke? J LISHMAN : did he do? PEASAN Absurd! What He just made game uv his landlord, sor. IRST NEW YORKER: Yorkers in Chicago ? ECOND NEW YORKER (just from Chicago): 1 imagine so. So many of the people | passed on the street had such a disgusted look, Were there many New MISSING INFORMATION. YE morn a Peri at the gate Of Eden stood disconsolate.” But if he, coming home so late Could find his key, Moore does not state. oe HE day before yesterday about one-half of the esteemed daily journals which lie upon LiFe’s exchange table announced in types of triumph that the Simpdinsville Clarion had abandoned the * United Press” and was now buying news of the “Associated Press.” The day after to-morrow the other half of the esteemed dailies on the said table will announce in types of aforesaid quality that the Podunk Bugle has quit the Associated Press and trades now with the United Press only. Similar announcements are made from once to twice a week during the season. The eagerness of these two newsmongering concerns to cut one another's throat is reasonable and may be worthy of encouragement, but it would afford a not very important but still welcome relief to the public if they would bicker in lower tones and lunge at one another with a somewhat less ostentations display of deadly steel. FAR WORSE. “JACK WAS VERY DISAGREEABLE LAST NIGHT.” “Was HE FULL OF WHISKY ?” “IT WAS WORSE THAN THAT. HE WAS FULL OF HIMSELF.”