Life, 1901-07-25 · page 15 of 20
Life — July 25, 1901 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Main Cartoon ("Home Again"):** Depicts sailors returning to a U.S. battleship, showing the cramped, chaotic conditions of naval life. The caption references the "starboard side," emphasizing the tight quarters sailors endured. **"No Case" Joke:** A woman suing for divorce shows bruises to the judge as evidence of abuse. The judge dismisses her claims, suggesting her injuries come from riding in a Broadway open car (convertible), not her husband's beatings. This satirizes how courts dismissed domestic violence claims and the common hazards of early 20th-century transportation—being jostled in open vehicles caused visible injuries. **Insurance Discussion:** Notes that life insurance companies now offer better rates to total abstainers, who claim healthier lifespans. The text wryly suggests this incentivizes moderate drinking—if drinking helps you collect insurance payouts faster, families benefit financially from the policyholder's earlier death. **"Blasé" Definition:** A father explains worldly exhaustion to his son: being tired of things "not worth living for"—satirizing aristocratic pretension and ennui.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HOME AGAIN. STARROARD SIDE OP A UNITED STATES BATTLESHIP. 75 No Case. UDGE: You'll have to get witnesses to prove that your husband has been beating you. PLaintiFF: Sure, your Honor, ain't I black and blue from head to foot? “But you have just acknowledged that you have been riding in a Broadway open car." GEVERAL of the American Life Insurance Companies have established separate classes for total abstainers, being Inclted thereto by the claim of a good many abstain- ers that they were healthter and longer-lived than other folks, and ought to get more insurance for thelr money, In the course of nature tt wiil take along time to tell whether the abstainers arc better riska than the average of mankind, and an {mpatient pabite might pre- fer to open somo of them tow and guess at their protablo longevity on tho strength of what an autopsy would show. But that ts impracticable for several reasons, and we shall have to walt, Meanwhile, we should all be grateful to the abstalners who have stirred the insurance compacics to action, If It ts one of the advantages of moderate drinking that it beings in life Insurance money more promptly, It ought to be known. Many families are tn- conventenced by being com- pelled to pay premiums long after they have ceased to have money to spare. An Overflow. Aiest FINANCIER: Are you getting much out of that new oil well? SrconpD FINANCIER: Are we? About fivo thousand dollars a week, all in five-dollarsubscrip- tions «¢DAPA, what does it ~~ mean to be blasé?”’ “My boy, it is getting tired of all the things that are not worth liv- ing for.’