Life, 1897-07-08 · page 12 of 20
Life — July 8, 1897 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 32 This page satirizes the Metropolitan Traction Company (streetcar operators) and their conflicts with pedestrians. The main article, "A Word of Warning," argues that streetcar companies wrongfully claim exclusive rights to city streets, endangering citizens. The text criticizes the notion that corporations have absolute dominion over public spaces. The lower cartoon, "Pearls of Etiquette," mocks the absurdity through visual irony: two well-dressed gentlemen in top hats walk a small dog on a leash through the street. The caption states, "It is not the correct thing to ape any tastes you do not possess," suggesting these men are pretentiously displaying refined manners they lack—paralleling how the streetcar companies claim rights they shouldn't possess.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
* LIFE: A WORD OF WARNING. HERE is occasionally an impression abroad among our citizens that the Metropolitan Traction Company, if it does not PP actually abuse its privileges, at least lives up fl) to their extremest limits. It would be possible for it, they maintain, without injury to % itself, to allow the citizens some definite &Y rights in regard to the use of the streets, and its gripmen and conductors might. without undue severity, be limited to a certain fixed number of killed and wounded per month. Those who take this view fail sadly to understand the situation. Thestreet car companies have no natural craving for bloodshed; on the contrary, what they do is done solely on principle and in self-defense. There are a certain number of unreasonable people opposing them who still cherish the exploded idea that the streets of a city belong to the citizens, and who will deduce from it various conclusions detrimental to the welfare of the street car and other corporations which have established entirely to their own satisfaction their right to the whole surface of the city, not to say of the earth. It is on account of these doctrinaires that the cars pursue their course of slaughter unchecked. Obviously, when a man’s whole mind is occupied with the problem of how to cross the streets in safety he has little time to spare for criticism of corporation methods, and a man whose highest hope is that he may reach his place of business uncrippled is not likely to complain of rates of fare. Hence it is the part of wisdom to keep all possible complainants so engaged that they shall have no time for attacking such rights as the ownership of the streets, dis- regard for public comfort and convenience, and soon. Moreover, itis plain that if the list of victims is sufficiently large it cannot fail to reduce the number of opponents ; it is unfortu- nate thata number of innocent people must be sacrificed in this attempt, but a gripman cannot be expected to know at sight whether a man favors or opposes the present rule of the cor- porations. JULY FOURTH— PEARLS OF ETIQUETTE. IT 18 NOT THE CORRECT THING TO APE ANY TASTES YOU DO NOT Possess.