Life, 1898-03-17 · page 14 of 20
Life — March 17, 1898 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page combines two pieces celebrating St. Patrick's Day (March 17). The **cartoon** depicts a chaotic street scene in what appears to be an Irish-American urban neighborhood—likely New York or Boston. The humor is visual: pedestrians slip and fall on wet pavement while horse-drawn carriages, delivery carts, and crowds create mayhem. The title's "slippery" pun plays on both the literal wet ground and Irish-American stereotypes. The **poem below**, "The Acknowledgment of Casey," is written in exaggerated Irish dialect ("sthrugglin' varmint," "bedad"). It humorously describes Casey receiving a green ribbon on St. Patrick's Day morning, then launches into mock-heroic praise of St. Patrick himself—detailing his poverty, piety, and most comically, his expulsion of snakes from Ireland (a biblical reference played for laughs through crude dialect). Both pieces mock Irish-American culture through affectionate stereotyping: drunken behavior, religious devotion, and stage-Irish speech patterns that were common in turn-of-the-century American humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HIS day, the best Of all the rest, St. Pathrick’s in the marnin’ By which I mane March sivintane, The day that he was bore in By all the saints, 1 almost faints! ‘The first thing that I came on, There, restin’ sure Furninst the door, A package with me name on! Me glad surprise To look what was into it, What there was hid And dhrew it forth to view it. Faith, when I seen This bit of green Coom sth I se; 1, + Me pen is dhry,” And sets me Muse a throublio’ * Coom thin, swate Muse, Me pin infuse, And swell me thayme ¢onorous (Ud rather spake, Me verse is wake: It stumbles at the corners.) ht, Good Lord! from Dublin, A SLIPPERY DAY ON THE ASPHALT. The Acknowledgment of Casey. On receiving a bow of green ribbon on St. Patrick's Day in the Morning, In virtue pure St. Pathrick sure Outshone all men of my day: He niver ate No scrap of mate In Lint, nor yet on Friday. This lovely isle, With beaven’s smile Forever bint acrost her, Through her he wint, And, riverint, Still said bis Puter Noster, Through Kiunegad He wint, bedad, Bint on his saintly labours; Through Killaloe, And Galway too, And Limerick, bejabers! He prached aroun’, Fair Dublin town, And beautiful Killarney; And just furninst Cork Castle wanst He kissed the Stone of Blarney. This holy man, This gracious one, Was ilegint and stately; With winsome arts The payple’s hearts He'd win to him complately. He was that poor, From door to door, Wid pardonin’ and confessin’, He rode no horse, He wore no purse, He took no alms but bles The snakes and toads Mong the roads Were good St, Pathrick’s tarmint: “Coom now,” he said, And by its head sped the sthrugglin’ varmint. Cried this swate praste, “ Whose land is this ye feed in? Wor ye not cursed, In Book the First, For what ye done in Eden ¢ These bastes of guile, Sure in this isle Must not the likes of thim go,” And with thim words He flung them furrards, Mud cast them all to limbo. Thim snakes to quell, As I've hearn tell, He thrashed and smote so deirely, Not wanst he caysed, This jaynial praste, Till they wor kilt intoirely.