Life, 1904-05-26 · page 13 of 22
Life — May 26, 1904 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main cartoon depicts six men in top hats sitting on a bench, all reading newspapers. The satire targets **theatre deadheads**—people given free passes to performances. The accompanying text explains the joke: theatre managers once gave free admission to decent-looking people to fill empty seats. Now that free-pass recipients have developed a taste for theatre, they've become impossible to manage; managers worry they'll face "mobbing" if they try to stop issuing passes. The humor lies in the ironic reversal: a temporary solution to empty houses has created a permanent, ungrateful audience the industry can never shake off. The image of these formally-dressed men obsessively reading "the latest news" (rather than attending theatre) emphasizes how deadheads have become a self-perpetuating social class—forever seeking something free.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE LATEST NEWS AND THE OLD STORY. free passes given to persons of decent appearance who will sit through a performance and keep the house from looking absolutely empty. ‘The hungry tiger who has once tasted blood is a purring kitten com- pared to the theatre-goer who has once passed the door-keeper with- out giving up the price of admission, and this fact is so well known that in the theatrical business it has taken the form of the adage, “Oncea deadhead always a deadhesd." The past season has added so largely to the census of this particular population, that if the busi- ness should ever pick up so that audiences can be induced to pay to go, the theatre managers and others who have the right to issue passes will have to go about with a body-guard to escape mobbing. Tank melodrama Laughable comic opera, which Two Little § Yankee Consul. seems destined to run out the summer. Casin>.— Piff, Pal, Pouf."” Melodious and funny. Criterion.—William Collier in The Dictator." The humorous side of Central American politics, fa Marlowe in Ingomar.” , See opposite Knickerbocker.—"* A Venetian Romance.” opera. Not at all funny, but rather musical. Lyric.—"Wang.” A really comic opera of other days. contrast. New Amsterdam.—Weber and Fields doing a {arewell” stunt. Savey.—Miss Elizabeth Tyree in “Tit for Tat.” Laughable French comedy well acted. Wallack's.—" The County Chairman." American rural politics. A Modern Primer. Tue Fiction Girt, Handsomely mounted comic Refreshing by George Ade's laughable view of the young girl, What isthe young girl doing? She is read- RS) ing a book. Is it a good book? Well, that depends, The author of the book thinks it is a good one, and so does the publisher. So does the young girl. Are there any other books better than this ? Yes, we think there are, But the young girl does not know about them, because they are oid. Then this book is not old? Oh, no, it is new. That is why the young girl is reading it. See her turn the leaves, See her skip. See ber eager expression. Should we all get the skipping habit, and turn the leaves with an eager expression ? Certainly we should, if we wish to keep up with all the latest books. And it is a good thing to do this, is it not? Well, it is not the chief end of man, but it is of a lot of young girls. F a man stammers a little when speaking to a girl, he has something to say. comicbooks.com