Life, 1898-03-24 · page 3 of 20
Life — March 24, 1898 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis The page shows a social satire cartoon titled "Life" (page 223). The illustration depicts three figures around a desk: two men and a woman in late 19th/early 20th-century dress. The caption reads: "I am teaching my wife to play poker. 'How are you getting on?' 'Well,' he asked me yesterday if he could live with us after we were married.'" The joke satirizes the emerging phenomenon of women learning "masculine" games like poker. The husband's concern that his wife's poker skills might be *too good*—suggesting she could win money from potential suitors—reflects period anxieties about changing gender roles. The satire mocks both wives' growing independence and husbands' fears of losing financial or social control. Below are two unrelated poems: "The Longest Way Around" and "The War in Chicago."
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1. 12M by Life Puldishing Co, TEACHING YOUR FATHER HOW TO PLAY POKER.” “Mow ARE YOU GETTING ON “WELL, HE ASKED OE YESTERDAY IP HE COULD LIVE WITH C8 AFTER WE WERE MARRUED.” The War in Chicago. Tisa relief and a pleasure to turn, from time to time, from thoughts of war and thecom The Longest Way Around. Ile waited till the other came, A N-POST at the forked road The steeper road to ta Of Time stood grim and gray, And to the post a traveler strode, In doubt which was the way. One road led up the stony hill, The other road led down: The downward road to Luckyville, And up, to Hardshiptow: Tward Luckyville he set his face, Yet, even as he turned, A traveler coming from that place His hopeful eyes discerned. “Is Luckyville,” he said, “so tame, That you its joys forsake?” “Not so,” the stranger quick replied, As up the hill he went. “That sign was wrong: I know,who’ve tried The rash experiment. “I'm going up this stony hill, Already I’ve been down, And tind the way to Luckyville Is round through Hardshiptown.” Tom Masson, parison of rival rumors, to consideration of the case and prospects of Mr. Joseph Leiter of Chi- cago. It is recalled that the brethren of the carlier Joseph put him in a hole, and that he Kot out and presently went into the grain busi- ness to such purpose that eventually he got more than even with all his brethren. In Jo- seph Leiter's case events follow a reversed order. He is in the grain business already, and though, in the language of Kentucky, his brethren are clamorous to welcome him with bloody hands to a hospitable pit, he is making a lively effort to keep out. It isa nice fight, and furnishes evtertainment for observers. comicbooks.com