Life, 1904-11-03 · page 29 of 40
Life — November 3, 1904 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct satirical pieces: **"Action"** mocks the reckless motorist craze of the early 1900s. A wealthy "eminent motorist" drives dangerously fast around a circular track—killing and maiming spectators—yet publicly boasts of going even faster. The satire targets both the driver's callous disregard for human life and society's fascination with speed for its own sake. The piece sardonically notes that psychologists prove drivers going over a mile per minute cannot think—they're merely gambling with chance—yet "nobody pays much attention to psychologists." The satirist implies the age glorifies reckless action over safety or reason. **"The Wrong Combination"** is a brief joke about dining at "Rigby's" restaurant, where both the ten-year-old chicken and equally-aged whiskey are served together—creating an absurd pairing where neither ingredient should actually be that old. It's humor about bad restaurant quality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
right, 1904, by Life Publishing Co. “ z i & Pt a < % 2 44} Action. HE eminent mo- torist who makes it his serious business to drive his car round an ordinary circular mile track in fifty secondsor so, and who has, on at least two occasions, plunged off through the crowd come out for to see his prodigies, killing some and maiming more, publicly avows a purpose to cover the mile in thirty-five seconds, and thus makes it tolerably clear why he is not in jail. This is distinctly the age of men who do things. Mawkish sentiment cannot be permitted to put ob- stacles in their way. Psychologists aver that a man going faster than a mile a minute is going faster than he can think, and that chance, and not intelligence,issteering his vehicle, provided it be not held in its way by fixed rails. But nobody pays much attention to psycholo- gists. The Wrong Com- bination. “Ss? you dined at Rigby’s?”” “Yes, The chicken they served must have been ten years old.” “And the whis- key?” “Well, that was about as old as the chicken should have been.” SCHOOL is a place where chil- dren should learn — not where they are taught.