Life — October 1, 1896 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "To Save Trouble" This cartoon depicts a couple on what appears to be a ship or boat. The woman asks if Fred is going to lunch, and the man replies that he's told the steward to prepare lunch and "throw it overboard" instead. The satire mocks seasickness during ocean travel. Rather than Fred bothering with the inconvenience of eating lunch only to get seasick, he's decided to skip the middle step and have the food discarded directly. It's dark humor about the common affliction of maritime illness—so severe that the effort of eating becomes pointless. The cartoon targets the frustration of early 20th-century ocean travelers for whom seasickness was an unavoidable nuisance of crossing.