Life, 1898-03-03 · page 15 of 20
Life — March 3, 1898 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of satire: **The Snowman Poem**: A humorous narrative where a snowman and snowwoman "fall in love" and run away together. The joke is the absurdist premise of snow figures developing romance and eloping—gentle, whimsical humor with no political content. **The Klondike Cartoon**: References the Klondike Gold Rush (1890s Alaska). A miner offers a prospector "a gold brick" (slang for a swindle or worthless item) in exchange for canned tomatoes. The satire mocks the desperation and poor judgment of gold-rush miners who overpay for basic provisions, and the con artists who exploit them. **"The Science of the Laboratory"**: A serious critique of vivisection (animal experimentation). Life quotes anti-vivisection advocates arguing that justifying animal torture as scientific progress is a dangerous moral slope toward devaluing human life. This reflects genuine 1890s-era reform debates about laboratory animal ethics. **"His Helpmate"**: A brief domestic joke about a wife accepting postponed theater plans—light, period-appropriate gender satire with no deeper political meaning.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“She buried her face on his shoulder.” A warm thrill ran through the big snowman As his lady then grew bolder, And running to him, ber eyes aswim, She buried her face on his shoulder And begged him be glad, nor e’er again sad, For she ne'er in her hfe would grow colder. * ® * * * When night had fled, the children said “There has been a change in the weather,” Then fast did go to their people of snow, And there, near a clump of heather, ‘They found his gun, but neither one— ‘They had both run off together. Grace Wickham Curvan “They had both run off together.” AT KLONOIKE. Miner: AY, OLD MAX, ULL GIVE YOU A GOLD BRICK FOR A CAN OF TOMATORS, MUCH! TERMATERS 18 IZ.” The Science of the Laboratory. H E advocate of murder so blinded by the de! of vivisection that he honestly believed be was uttering a moral sentiment. “The aim of science York Sudependent of December, 1805, ‘ nt of human knowledg: a scientitic writer in the New critice of human life. tsand guinea pigs can be put to any bigher use than to advance science we do not know what it is, We do not know of any higher use we can put a man to. nothing compared to a new fact.” Well, it sa moral sentiment for a vivisector. All of which goes to prove that the step from torturing avimals to killing humans is imperceptible. Dr, Albert Leflingwell, not one of the “ unscientific people,” says “the old standards of right and wrong seem to be away, The vivisection of animals has been pushed to its utmost limits; there are no néw torments to be de conceivable phase of agony has been inflicted again an Kind of looks, brothers, as if this kind of “science” wasn't a safe thing to lean on, A human life is His Helpmate. H : Darling, 1 wanted to take you to the theatre to- night, but I felt that I couldn't afford it. Sue: Never mind, dear. We can go to-morrow night.