Life, 1895-10-24 · page 1 of 20
Life — October 24, 1895 — page 1: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "New Specimens" — Life Magazine, October 24, 1895 This cartoon satirizes an upper-class couple's social pretensions. The woman shows concern about missing doughnuts she made yesterday, worried a guest ate them. The man reassures her they're safe—he gave them to "a friend of mine." The punchline reveals the friend is "a geologist," implying the doughnuts are so hard and stale they resemble rock specimens worthy of geological study. The joke mocks both the woman's poor baking skills and the couple's attempt to maintain polite appearances about domestic failure. It's a domestic humor piece typical of *Life*'s satirical commentary on middle and upper-class manners and mishaps of the 1890s.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
VOLUME XXvVI. NEW YORK, OCTOBER 24, 1895. NUMBER 669. Entered at the New York Post Office as Second-Class Mail Matter. Copyright, 1895, by Mircnnut & Mituee, NEW SPECIMENS. “Do YoU KNOW, SOME OF THOSE DOUGHNUTS I MADR. YESTERDAY ARE MISSING.” “Don'T BE ALARMED, DEAR, I TOOK THEM DOWN TOWN TO A FRIEND OF MINE," “Dip We EAT THEM?” “HEAVENS, No! HE 1S A GEOLOGIST,"