Life, 1903-07-09 · page 7 of 20
Life — July 9, 1903 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explanation of Life Magazine Page 39 The main cartoon depicts a schoolteacher instructing children, with the caption mocking arithmetic instruction: "Teacher, there isn't a sum like that in my arithmetic!" / "Pierpont has his own arithmetic." This satirizes **J.P. Morgan** (the wealthy industrialist), suggesting he operated by different financial rules than ordinary people—a common criticism of the Gilded Age wealthy. The joke implies Morgan manipulated numbers and business practices to his advantage, beyond normal legal/ethical constraints. Below, brief articles discuss book reviews and "The Hills"—a story about the Hill family's involvement in railroad crimes and the emerging radium industry. The "Heat of the Future" section mocks radium's commercial hype, noting science hadn't yet found practical uses beyond marketing to consumers. The page satirizes both industrial corruption and pseudoscientific commercialism of the early 20th century.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
+ MTRACHEN, THERE ISN'T A SUM LIKE THAT IN MY AMITHMETIC.” Mr. Stockton seemed to think that he had to be queer to be Stockton. Here he has a story to tell us, and is incidentally aud delightfully whimsical because he cannot help it. (D. Appleton and Company. $1.50.) William W. Pennell, M. D., has, rather inadvisedly, exchanged the stethoscope for the pen. His novel, The Buckeye Doctor, suffers from several congenital maladies, including ossification of the characters, syncopated interest and malformation of dialect. Impaired circulation will probably follow. (The Grafton Press. $1.50.) ‘The approval which F. Berkeley Smith has won as an interpreter of a special phase of Parisian life by The Real Latin Quarter should be more than confirmed by his new aud more catholic volume upon How Paris Anmuses Itself. It is charmingly written aud tof modern Paris is prisoned (Funk aud Wagnalls Com- the very sp in its text, $1.50.) pany. “PIERPONT MAS IS OWN ARITHMETIC.” The Girt Proposition is another book of rge Ade. To confess a limited capacity for Mr. Ade’s fables does not, we take it, imply the luck of a sense of humor, but merely a limited horse-sense of humor. (R. IL. Russell.) J, 2, Kerfoot. The Hills. "PHE other day, Mr. James J. Hill, the father, stated that if merging railways was a crime, he chose to be acriminal, or words to that effect. And now comes Mr. Louis W. Hill, the son : *The Northern Securities Company will not be dissolved, even if the United States Supreme Court upholds every contention made in the cases that have been brought against the company.” Of course the Hills are not anarchists they are worth twenty or’ thirty mil- lions of dollars, besides being thor- oughly in favor of the single gold standard. MAGINATION does not create ; it only redistributes the mind's assets. The Heat of the Future. A SEIZEN entered briskly. + “Send me up an ounce of radium,” he said. ‘ Rightaway. The house is colder than a barn."’ ** What's become of the ounce of radium we sold you four years ago?” asked the clerk. “The baby swallowed it,’’ said the cit . Science had as yet discovered no commercially practicable substitute for babies. comicbooks.com