Life, 1897-12-16 · page 13 of 20
Life — December 16, 1897 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page satirizes **swindlers and moral hypocrisy** in early 20th-century America. The upper section mocks William Carroll Woodward, a convicted blackmailer who gave a newspaper interview boasting about criminals he knew in New Rochelle. Life's editors sarcastically note that prominent New Rochelle residents—naming real figures like artist Frederic Remington and writer Julian Hawthorne—might appreciate this unflattering publicity about their town. The middle section ridicules a business report describing a Kentucky distiller engaged in illegal liquor-selling, yet rated "generally very favorably regarded"—highlighting the absurd contradiction of praising someone for lawbreaking. The bottom section contrasts two Santa letters: an old-fashioned boy requesting simple items versus a modern boy's materialistic demands, suggesting societal moral decline. The sidebar poem "Courage" and the domestic joke about remarriage reinforce themes of changing social values and behavior.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Sweeping. NE of the most ac- complished swindlers of our time, uamed Wil- liam Carroll Woodward, has been sentenced for black- mail. He recently gave up a long and interesting interview, in the New York Sun, in which he goes mi- nutely into his past career, Among other reminiscences he says: Another that ought to be on that list that I have heard of is BIN Train, He *LIFE: sold gold bricks, they say. He died of paresis in New Rochelle, There were five hundred crooks at his funeral. Where did they come from? New Rochelle, mostly. There ain't a man in the town who ain't crooked. I ought to know. lived there myself. How does this information please such residents of New Rochelle as Frederic Remington, Francis Wilson, E. W. Kemble, Ollie Iselin, Julian Hawthorne and Henry Loomis Nelson ? I’ isn’t the actual players in the game of politics that put up the stakes. CERTAIN business house asked a commercial agency for a report on a customer in Kentucky. The report came, and in speaking of a brother of the man inquired about, who had assisted him financially, said: ‘He is now engaged as a distiller here, and is said to be selling liquor in violation of the law. He is generally very favorably regarded.” TWO LETTERS TO SANTA CLAUS. THE OLD-PASHIONED BOY'S LETTER. Men sayin if THE MODERN BOY'S LETTER “a PIPE ORGAN.” Courage. I proposed nt to be Quite dignified and cool, For there was no necessity Of acting like a fool. There seemed to menocarthly cause Why man should lose his head, Or e’er before a woman pause In state of direful dread. So on the fatal, fateful night, Tt didn’t seem so bard; Arriving at her home all right, I sent her up my ¢ But when she cam Greeks !— Where fine? The roses mounted to her cheeks, I held her band in mine. She breathed a little, shiver- ing sigh, Nalf tearful, half of laugh- ter— I kissed her when I saw her ery, And asked after! as, ye were iny feelings permission Elizabeth Davis, 2NPECK: After I'm dead I want you to marry again, Wire: Why, dear? “Then I'll feel assured there will be at least one who will daily deplore my death.”