Life, 1895-10-03 · page 19 of 26
Life — October 3, 1895 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"The Rivals"** is a three-panel comic strip satirizing competition between clothing merchants. Three clothiers—A. Coan, B. Kohn, and Z. Cohen—each claim superiority through increasingly grandiose storefront signs: "Finest Clothier in Town," then "in the World," then "on this Street." The humor escalates absurdly as each merchant's claim expands then contracts, mocking the exaggerated advertising and boastful competition common in retail. **"A Nice Young Man"** is a humorous poem about a man choosing gin over beer and wine. He rejects ale ("foaming Bass") and wine ("red wine's snare") but smiles approvingly at gin, declaring it superior to all other drinks. The satire appears to mock both excessive drinking culture and the smugly confident young man who fancies himself a connoisseur while indulging in alcohol. Both pieces use gentle humor to critique contemporary social behaviors—commercial vanity and drinking habits.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
CLOTHIER CLOTHIER IN THE ON THIS P tHe rinest | MS FINEST” THE RIVALS. A NICE YOUNG MAN. HE glowing glass with its ruby tide, A young man stopped at the table there, And he drained a draught of the crystal drink. And the glass with the crystal drops, And he frowned at the foaming Bass, And it made him refreshed within, Together stood upon either side He shook his head at the red wine’s snare. He said, ** No claret nor beer, I think, Of the glass with the brew of hops. But he smiled on the crystal glass. Can compare with the taste of gin.” comicbooks.com