Life, 1905-01-19 · page 14 of 38
Life — January 19, 1905 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains early 20th-century American satire about automobiles, still a novel technology. **"Compensation" cartoon:** A ghost of a "reckless chauffeur" boasts that though he caused chaos on the road, the "sulphur fumes" of exhaust fumes searing everyone's lungs provide cosmic justice. The joke satirizes both dangerous early drivers and the noxious pollution cars created—presenting poisoned air as ironic comeuppance. **"His Voyage" story:** An old sailor describes his first automobile ride using nautical language—treating the car like a ship with "ballast," "scuppers," and "bare poles." The humor comes from the anachronistic mismatch: a traditional sailor bewildered by modern technology, describing acceleration as nautical speed, and terrified by street-level chaos (cobblestones, pedestrians) he mistakes for ocean spray. Both pieces mock the automobile as a dangerous, disruptive new invention that poisons the air and terrorizes city streets—reflecting genuine contemporary anxieties about early motorization.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Epigrams. HERE is no necessity for saying it all, You say more t Everything that is most beautiful in life and art uulse—not to intention, ying less. owes its existence to in Women should not make laws. Instead tt bring up their children in a way that would make laws unnecessary. Science is religion. It teaches us to know nature. And nature is the visible half of God. Whether he will or scientist is a high priest. the souls of all our dead— not—every As well as search the air f we might search the earth for all their bodies. To strive is more than to succeed. Ast ays better tl Who gives most, asks most. The look has more power than the eye—the smile is more na distorted truth, aight lie is aly victorious than the mouth— than the form—taste and grace triumphant ov what you are, forever overruling what y A child should not be disciplined to obe! COMPENSATION. SAID THE SHADE OF A RECKLESS CHAUPFEUR: “ THO’ THE ROADWAY'S A. RIT INSE: THERE N& THOUGHT TO CHRER, WHEN THR SULPHUR FUMES SEAR NO LAWS here PoRDID * scorching,’ VM SURE.” -LIFE- A COMPROMISE BY A LOVER OF HORSES. His Voyage. OLD SAILOR MAD TO SAY AnOUT HIS AUTO RIDE, LL, Jack, how did y ride in that automobile?’ The old sailor gave a look aloft and a preliminary hitch to his trousers. “*Do you want me to tell you about that age?” he asked. “Yes.” “Well, a friend of mine hove in sight the other morning with one of those strange craft. The wind wa ir, and as he rounded up under the lee of my boarding-house, he sung out for me to join him. So I clumb on, and in a minute or more we were off down the Avenue, with everything set, the wind on the quarter and making about ten knots. By and by my friend, who was cap- tain, pilot, officer of the watch, lookout and man at the wheel all in one, shifted his cigarette to port and says, ‘ Now we'll let her out a bit.” He took out a belaying pin, shifted some of the ballast, pulled a pl out of the lee scuppers, and ina minute or more we began to buzz like a northeast gale off the coast of Killarney. My friend was all right, for he had a pair of spy-glasses rigged on to his front figure-head; but I was sailing right up in the eye of the wind under bare poles, expecting any minute to run head on to something or other. I wouldn't dare say just how fast we were going, but I looked over the side once or and judging by the cobblestones and children that seemed to foam all round us, I WHat ou enjoy ‘our comicbooks.com