Life, 1900-07-26 · page 5 of 20
Life — July 26, 1900 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 65 **Top Section - "How to Make a Summer Resort":** This is satirical practical advice for establishing a profitable seaside resort on cheap American coastal land. The tongue-in-cheek instructions include buying lumber, building bath houses, acquiring beds, hiring staff (including "skilled robbers"), and stocking alcohol. The cartoon illustrates two figures at what appears to be a resort counter. The satire mocks the commercialization and exploitation inherent in turn-of-the-century resort development—suggesting resorts are essentially schemes to extract money from gullible tourists through inferior accommodations and overpriced goods. **Bottom Section - "The Thorny Paths of Benevolence":** This political cartoon addresses the Boer War in South Africa. It criticizes British humanitarian claims about the conflict while quoting three contemporary figures questioning the war's justification. The monument imagery and surrounding chaos suggest mockery of Britain's moral posturing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| ow to Make a Summer Resort. BYY about ten carloads of assorted lumber, and move it to any stretch of sand on the American coast, far enough away from a rail- road station to make a stage line profitable. Arrange the lumber so that it will stand up and keep off the rain, and nail together with a few tenpenny nails. Paint the whole any bright color. Now, from what is left over make a board walk four miles long and four feet wide. From what is left of the board walk, erect a row of bath houses. Make each com- partment so small that a guest will have to live at the hotel for a week before he is thin enough to undress in it. Put at one side a shelf with the splinter side up, to sit down on w tired. Go to a hardware shop and buy an electric plant, and string one wire in the hotel office, another on the cupola on top, and the third on the flagstaff in front. Let the rest of the place, including the piazza and surroundings, be in total darkness, Order from a department store one good sized towel, and divide it into as many pieces as there will be guests, say one for every three guests. Buy from an auction room a set of beds that no one else wants, and from the navy yard some discarded’ armor, which makes fine summer hotel bed springs. Have the space between the bed: and the sides of each room fully wide enough to admit a good sized skeleton. Now go to any reputable burglar agency and secure a complete band of skillful robbers, including a head robber and a robber for each dining-room table. After this has been done, buy one small cow, one large pump, and arrange with a canning factory to furnish enough fresh vegetables each week to supply one-half the > LMG « “COME ON, OLD CHAP, LET'a GO DOWN INTO THE YOLD AND SER THE WORKINGS OF THE SHIP'S VITALS.” “NO, THANKS, I MAVE 4 PRETTY GOOD IDEA OF IT Now,” guests. Secure from a deaf and dumb asylum one man with a sixty-carat rhinestone, to stand behind the counter. Go to the back of the structure, dig a cellar large enough to accommodate all the male guests, cover it with blinds, label it “ barber shop,” and fill it with the worst beer, wine and whiskey that the ingenuity of man has been able to devise. Your summer resort is now ready for use. All you need is to advertise judiciously, and never allow any guest to escape with a red cent in his pocket. Tom Masson. UNVEILING THE MONUMENT ERECTED IN MEMORY OP THE SPIDER WHO SAVED ROBERT BRUCE. The Thorny Paths of Benevolence. lig does seem hard that Eng- land, in her glorious South African crusade, should not have the support of all her citizens. But the men quoted below are probably the three most ignorant and malicious traitors in the whole bloomin’ kingdom, dontcherknow : “This war isa crime against civil- ization.” — Sir Epwaxp CLankg, M. PL “T consider that under present circumstances to make war upon the Transvaal would be a national crime.” — Lord Cotenipor, July 9th, 1899. “It is incredible that after these concessions a war should be pos- sible.”"—Canon Scott-HoLbann.