Life — November 6, 1902 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Excelsior Up to Date: A Ballad of the 'Bloody Buzzer'" This illustrated ballad satirizes early automobile culture. The cartoon depicts a reckless motorist in a primitive "buzzer" (slang for early automobiles) speeding through a village, causing chaos and death. The poem mockingly recounts how the driver, initially confident and dismissive of speed limits, encounters a sheriff's warning but ignores it. The vehicle ultimately crashes, leaving "a gruesome mass of bones and blood" at a morgue. The satire targets both the dangerous, reckless behavior of early drivers and society's anxiety about new automobile technology. The phrase "Bloody Buzzer" puns on both the vehicle's nickname and the literal bloody consequences of uncontrolled speed—a common concern when automobiles were new and unregulated.