Life, 1895-04-04 · page 3 of 18
Life — April 4, 1895 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis This page from *Life* magazine (Volume XXV, No. 640) contains two distinct pieces of humor: **"Histrionic Hydraulics"** (top illustration) depicts a theatrical scene where an actress claims she can communicate feeling to an audience, while her companion notes the audience wept—but only because everyone nearby perspired profusely. This satirizes overwrought Victorian theatrical performances and the gap between actors' self-importance and actual audience response. **"Ballad of the Bolted Bones"** (left) is a humorous poem about Miss Sarah Adeliza Jones, a maid who possessed a box of bones she couldn't get rid of, suggesting domestic mishaps or waste disposal problems of the era. **"A Chicago Puzzle"** (right) presents a comedic domestic entanglement involving divorces and remarriages among the Jones and Robbins families, mocking the complications of serial marriages among acquaintances.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ts, tter wh} dods a } at ten n to lo sof Ft here ev) (Californi ned, Bee ed ready the Ib. oned, St ong oF fine leaf! alitics, HISTRIONIC HYDRAULICS. First Actress: 1 THINK | HAVE THE POWER OF COMMUNICATING A FEELING TO AN AUDIENCE, Second Actress: Ves. \WWEN YOU WEPT TO-NIGHT I NOTICED THAT EVERYBODY PERSPIRED PROFUSELY. BALLAD OF THE BOLTED BONES. M $ Sarah Adeliza Jones, A ritualistic maid devout, Possessed a box of holy bones She couldn't get along without, Full many a finger that, for alms Cash down, haderst absolved and blessed, Full many a toe whose saintly charms Devotion’s pious lips had pressed. Ascetic was the maiden’s bent, And in her self-devotion vast, Vicariously keeping Lent, She set her poodle-dog to fast. And bade him live on cold, raw hope ‘The inner dog to mortify : Ah! maid devout, ‘twas rash to ope ‘The relic-chest when he was by ! In vain the blow—the warning tones-- For ere she bolted down the lid The dog had bolted down the bones And bolted down the street and hid. Parrot (up in Evolution) THIS WHAT WE COME TO? Great Scott! 1s A CHICAGO PUZZLE. E*S ERN STRANGER: The Joneses and Robbinses are re- lated, I understand. EXPERIENCED NATIVE: | should say they were. When old Robbins was divorced, he married Miss Jones, and her elder brother, Potter Jones, married Mrs. Robbins. (Stranger gasps.) Oh, that’s not half of it! The year after that, young Mrs. Robbins gotadivorce and married the former Mrs. Robbins’s uncle, and last year Potter Jones was divorced and married Robbins’s younger sister. That's how dt stands at present, but they say Rob- bins is paying attention to Potter Jones's aunt now, so there's no telling how much further the family connec- tion may extend,