Life, 1898-10-20 · page 6 of 20
Life — October 20, 1898 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 306 Analysis This page contains three distinct humor pieces. "A Co-operative Plan" discusses profit-sharing in business, advocating worker investment and partnership rather than charitable wage distribution. The accompanying illustration shows a businessman presenting this idea. "Candlelight" is a romantic poem by Graham Horne about courtship by candlelight. "Balaam and His Beast" and "The Sign Was True" are two cartoon vignettes with brief comedic dialogue. The first appears to be a dentist's joke about reading signs (red hair indicating bad temper). The second, "The Sign Was True," shows a married couple's domestic argument about the wife's red hair as a temperament indicator—the humor deriving from the husband acknowledging he ignored this warning sign before marriage. Both cartoons use exaggerated facial expressions typical of early 20th-century Life magazine humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Surrendered. ITTLE Miss Muffet, 4 Through blixs and through buffet, Determined unmarried to stay; But a gallant Rough Rider 80 boldly defled her Sho's Mrs, Rough Rider to-day. A Co-operative Plan. $6] AM TOLD,” sald the reporter to the magnate wh had been sent to intervie’ Spectal pains will be taken, by the combination into which you are golng, to get your employees Interested in the business, and ‘that they will have an opportu- nity to subscribe for stock?” “That ts right, slr,” said the magnate. “Quite so! Some of the gentlemen associated with me tn the forma- tlon of the Wooden Nutmeg Trust—I call tt a trust, you see, although its formation will reduce prices—have given much thought to the perplexing questions regarding the relation of capital to labor, and labor to capital. We have considered the vartous methods of profit sharing put into use by different employers firms, and we have found insuperable difculties in the "8 DEVICE POR ‘LIFE * way of adopting them in our business, Profit sharing 1s all right when there are profits to share, but what are you going to do when there are losses? Ab! that is the rub, sir, Butt may say that we have evolved a plan which can be avalied of by our workpeople without any loss of self-respect whatever, and which will enable them to take an Interest tn the management of the business because they will be partners, The Iden of dividing profits when there are profits, and of dividing none when there are no profits, without the reciptent having any Interest In the business aside from this possible division, ts, 1 think, suggestive of charity. But there will be no charity In the plan now put into effect by the Combined Wooden Natmeg Manufacturers. Stock {s offered for sale to our workpeople on precisely the same terms and precisely the same price per share that It 1s offered to the present owners. We Invite them to subscribe, and the more subscribers we find among our own work- people the better we shall be pleased. Does not that Idea commend Itself to you, sir?” It did commend ttseif to the reporter, and the reporter sald so. By the way,” added the magnate, as the re- porter was putting bis notebook Into Lis pocket, “perhaps I ought to say that the directors thought It advisable to 1X a minimum quantity of stock which could be allowed to a siogle sub- seriber. No subscription of less than fifty thou- sand dollars worth of stock will be considered, Good-day, sir. Thank pr calling.” Wittam Henry Siviter, ij The Sign Was True. R. BICKER: It's my own fault. M I knew that red hair was a sign of bad temper when | married you. Mrs. Bicker: Well, at least you cannot say I am deceitful. ‘No, you are not deceitful. You've got the bad temper all right.” Candlelight. DEAR, dim nursery; a tiny crib; A greut, wide feeling of night; ‘The crickets chirruping far away, Outside—where it once was light; A doting old nurse with a cracked old voleo Who sang to me, shrill and slow, Going to bed by cundlelight, Hundreds of years ago! "Twas true my rocking-horse did not move, I'd watcbed him long through the door; I could get no salt on the robins’ tails, And tho coachman—my idol—swore! Yet all theso miseries passed away, Away ina drowsy glow, Going to bed by candlelight, Hundreds of years ago! If grown-up sorrows would die at dusk, And care go down with the sun! If hearts surrendered to sleepy heads, And thought, with the day, were done! If only, if only I knew once more The bliss that I used to know, Going to bed by candlelight, Hundreds of years ago! Graham Horne. Balaam and His Beast. E: Do you believe, Miss Faith, that an ass ever spoke? Sue: Yes; don’t you? ets is human nature on dress MOLDING TIMID PATIENTS.