Life, 1896-08-13 · page 12 of 18
Life — August 13, 1896 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine Page Analysis This page from *Life* satirizes contemporary urban concerns through multiple cartoons: **"A God-Send on Wheels"** mocks the hazards of tall office buildings and modern city life. The article describes a portable fire escape on wheels with heavy sarcasm—praising how occupants of upper floors wouldn't even know their building was burning until evening. The satire targets inadequate building safety and the absurdity of relying on newspapers or telephone calls to learn of disasters. It extends the joke by suggesting the device could serve as cheap moving equipment or a substitute for broken elevators. **"He Feared the Worst"** presents a darker joke: a father reunites with his long-lost son, dreading what profession he might have adopted. The punchline reveals the son became a "Chicago gambler"—bad enough—but the father is *relieved*, saying "Thank Heaven" he didn't become a "Chicago alderman." This satirizes Chicago politics and government corruption as worse than gambling, suggesting aldermen were viewed as criminals or moral failures. The caption implies municipal corruption was rampant and notorious.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SEA SARPINTS!" A GOD-SEND ON WHEELS. PORTABLE fire escape has been constructed. It con- sists of a high derrick mounted on trucks. A basket can be lowered from the top, and people taken from any window of our high tenement and office buildings. This is just what we've needed. The modern office building is frightfully high and not always fire proof. When the lower part of a building caught fire, the occupants of the far removed upper stories hardly ever learned of the raging element below them until on their way home in the evening. Of course, sometimes arrangements were made for friends to telegraph or use the long distance telephone, and apprise them of the calamity. Or they might see the flames reflected on the clouds that hung around their window. Oran extra edition of some daily might perchance find its way into their rooms, giving details of the disaster far below. What a God-send a movable fire escape will be to these people when find their egress barred by blazing floors and doors! Nor is its field of usefulness limited to rescuing law and maidens from burning buildings. It will prove a bonanza in moving from one flat to another, or even when the occupants of one flat wish to visit those of another down The Younger Man (timidly): MIGHT I ASK WHAT YOUR VIEWS. ARE ON THE SUBJECT OF PRONIBITION ? the street. It will save a long, circuitous route by way of the earth, When the elevator is out of order it will be a great improvement on balloons for reaching the upper stories of a skyscraper. As a means of conveyance it will be a bless- ing on wheels, and comes in the nick of time. Compelled to do all our traveling in the road or street, it would have been a question of but a very few years until all old people, women and children, would have been killed by bicyclists. The wheel, however, cannot climb, and this movable fire escape is undoubtedly a Providential dispen- sation, We will not object if it does deface the zenith. HE FEARED THE WORST. “A D my boy—my long lost boy?” the father cried anxiously, “He grew up to be a Chicago gambler,” they admitted, regretfully. EXTRACT FROM A VACATION LETTER, ” . :, De " aa s ; “Thank Heaven the old man cried, his careworn AR FATHER: Newport, Aug. 10, '96. = a . 1 AM DOING A BIT OF HACK WORK AT PRESENT, WHICH PAYS face brightening, . I feared he might have become a VERY WELL AND THROWS ME WITH PLEASANT PEOPL. Chicago alderman. comicbooks.com