Life, 1904-06-30 · page 7 of 23
Life — June 30, 1904 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine contains two satirical pieces: **"The Sea Serpent Ashore"** is a poem mocking New York City's persistent "sea serpent" sightings—a recurring hoax/legend. The verses humorously describe the creature's fearsome appearance while suggesting it's been spotted near the city. **"A Busy Woman"** describes Aunt Debby, a woman praised for her enormous productivity: raising eight children, feeding missionaries and preachers, cooking 65,000 meals, washing 500,000 dishes—yet somehow remaining "fully as good as the average." The satire appears to critique either excessive domesticity expectations or the absurdity of quantifying women's unpaid household labor as moral virtue. The top cartoon shows a woman refusing to let a man take her dog to the city, establishing the domestic-sphere tension running through the page.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“PARDON ME, MADAM, BUT TWAS PASSING YOUR HOUSE JUST NOW AND YOUR DOG SUDDENLY RECAME ATTACHED TO ME AS EAM GOING TO THE CITY, EKNEW YOU WOULD NOT CARE TO HAVE ME TAKE HIM WITH MF.” The Sea Serpent Ashore. P to date the old Sea Serpent has not spouted as of yore, U But has left the ocean combers and is doing stunts on shore, For a great ard fearful monster underneath New York to-day Surely now is creeping, crowding, forcing a determined way. From the Batter Hear it mumble, Smoke is rush to Harlem powerfully it writhes along ; ‘oan and rumble, striking terror to the strc 1 from its nostrils spouting, maki nd it Lelches fire and steam, Snorting, sissin even donkey-engines scream. With an appetite enormous and a widely y Frightened women, autos, horses disappear within its maw ; Foreign favors just ir And it swallows down Italians in the place of Pat and woing jaw, red are the things it seems to like ke. Tall sky-scrapers feel it comin ‘Their expensive underpinnin; , and they tremble lest it scoop as it has the brownstone stoop. How it licks up all before it, and with dynamitic roar Wallows round and makes more trouble than it ever did off shore ! All the city politicians never pulled more miles of wire, Laid such pipe, or did such dark deeds as this monster of the mire ; Press and Pulpit, stern Injunction could not stay its sweeping course, ‘Tis another indication of the Passing of the Horse. Never Tammany’s brave Tiger lashed its tail with wilder roars Than ure pushing through our cellar doors j= mighty, snorting cre: It is proud when lordly Mayors deign within its sides to walk, And it gled through your Little Old New York. s) See how I've wr + Lam not an Office-seeke And the Serpent is your servant when but I'm on the ground to stay, ter than ‘hot air’— It is up to you to feed me something b Just a very simple ration—nickels for my daily fare.” A. S. Shelton, A Busy Woman. Le H-YAH! There was my Aunt Debby, who was as good a woman as ‘most ever walked the ground, and so busy that she was mighty near painful, at times,” id old Timrod Tarpy, whose jovial philosophy was occa- sionally strabismussed by pessimism, ‘She raised eight children that were fully as good as the average, contributed to over 200 missionaries of one kind and another, fed goo preachers, mostly on chicken-and-dumplin’s, darned 9,000 socks, cooked 65,000 meals, washed 800,000-and-several d , and had something near a million different last comicbooks.com