Life, 1897-08-26 · page 5 of 20
Life — August 26, 1897 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis: Life Magazine, Page 165 This page combines satirical verse and illustration addressing early 20th-century class tensions. "A Ballad of Middle Names" mocks salesmen who used middle initials (like "A. D. Jones") to appear more respectable—a pretension the poem ridicules. The story mentions a "social club" formed by Perkins De Montmorency Smith and others, suggesting mockery of working-class people adopting aristocratic-sounding names. The bottom illustration, "Pearls of Etiquette," depicts a man apparently striking his wife with a rolling pin while she gestures wildly. The caption sarcastically states it's improper to treat one's wife with discourtesy "that you would not dare show a paid housekeeper"—satirizing domestic abuse and class hypocrisy among husbands who respected paid servants more than wives.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Ballad of Middle Names. A SY° UNG ve Ara- HAM De Pys- TER JONES Was some- times called a lazy- bones, But he worked bravely, all the same, To live up to his middle name. . PATER FAMILIAS a One morn he went out walking with Perkins De Montmorency Smith And, ere they'd gotten far down town, Met Christopher De Forest Brown. Oh, joy! oh, bliss beyond compare! Behold three names assembled there; Aristocratic, as you see, To an unusual de-gree! And as they smiled, shook hands and talked, Lo!in upon their counsels walked Peter Des Brosses Chubb, a youth Named quite as well as they, in sooth! Then cried they all: ‘1’ faith” and “eke” (‘Tis thus a man of blood must speak), “We'll form a De-trust and say scat To the base-born proletariat !" *LIFE> Then James De Lancy Spratt came up And said: ‘Come quaff with me acup, The S. A. R. can never hold A.candle to our guild of gold ! “A band of brothers we shall be, Sworn to stand by our glorious De, And, spite of prejudice or pull, To write our middle names in full. “We will insist that salesmen write Our De's out plainly in our sight On their sales tickets; nor will we Receive goods unaddressed with De. “For, oh! the better classes must View with continuing disgust The growing insolence of those Who have no De’s about their clothes.” Next day the papers mentioned that “Abram D. Jones and James D. Spratt, Perkins D. Smith and P, D. Chubb,” Had ‘organized a social club.” SPB. LITTLE girl who had told a lie was escorted to her bedroom by her mother and told to ask God to forgive her for her sin. This is what the listening mother heard: “Oh, God, I thought you could take a joke!" PEARLS OF ETIQUETTE. “4 SEWING BE! HE officers are blamed for not discovering criminals, and blamed by people who do not stop to think about the crimes that are never committed. We never hear of them.” Never hear of them? read the daily papers?” “cc Don’t you IV IS NOT THE CORRECT THING TO TREAT YOUR WIFE WITH A DISCOURTESY THAT YOU WOULD NOT DARE TO SHOW A PAID HOUSEKEEPER, comicbooks.com