Life, 1905-01-19 · page 15 of 38
Life — January 19, 1905 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two humorous short stories typical of Life's satirical content. **Top illustration and text ("Eight hundred knots an hour"):** A man recounts a wild automobile ride where his friend drives recklessly at breakneck speed, treating the car like a ship at sea. The friend ignores all danger signs—barometer readings, warnings to slow down—while smoking a cigarette. The joke satirizes the early automobile era's dangerous driving and the false sense of control drivers had. The exaggerated nautical language (reefs, topsails, mainmast) mocks comparing cars to ships. **"Homelike" section:** A child in a railway sleeper car (overnight train) asks her mother "Who has the flat above us?"—confusing the upper berth with an apartment above. This gently mocks children's literal interpretations and the unfamiliar experience of rail travel. The closing dialogue about "mercy" being "sterilized" appears unrelated, likely a separate joke fragment. Both pieces use everyday modern transportation as subjects for gentle, family-friendly humor characteristic of early 20th-century Life magazine.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
should say we were making at least exght hundred knots an hour. “TL tried my best to keep a sharp lookout ahead, but before L could get my eyes fastened on to any object what- somever, it was about four miles astern, There was some sort of a land fog-horn rigged up in front, and I tried to yrab it and tell my friend to shorten sail. It seemed to me that he ought to clew up the royals, t' gallant sails and flying jib, and put a double reef in the topsails, for T saw by the barometer that was fastened to the bulwarks that almost every kind of weather there was was threatening. But my friend just fooled with that wheel and hung on to that cigarette, and the gnats and things peppered his spy. glasses like birds ona lighthouse lamp, and I saw he w bound to outsail everything else in sight. Then I shut nd it seemed as if the s Ke ing over us, and we were pitching and tossing and rolling on to our beam ends, and then righting ourselves and diving ahead right through forty feet of solid green. And while I was cogitating in my mind, and wondering if we hadn't better call all hands and-cut away te rigging, and let the mainmast go by the board, there wis a rip and a snort and a sudden silence, and I opens my eyes, and there we were sitting calm and serene in front of my boarding- house, with my friend puffing away like mad at his cigar- ette, which was more'n half out. eyes and hung on, as were bre: + hight hundred knots an how.” ‘Back again,” says my friend. © And now where else shall we go?’ “But Lygot out. It seemed mighty good, [can tell y to set foot on dry Land once more. ot form «My next voy: e will be firm old ocean, with the blue water underneath me, and wind can blow all the buttons off the captain's coat for all Teare. But when I take ship in one of those hell barken- nes, liable to run ashore any and blow up, or something equs ute and spring a leak y exciting, why, you'll have to excuse me!” And I groped my a double dose of grog. blindly into my land cabin and took Tom Masson. Homelike. MA," said the little girl who was having her first experience of riding in a sleeper. ‘Tush, dear," whispered mama, “ you will waken the others." * But, mama, I only "Well, what is it?"" “Who has the flat above us?" want to ask one question.” is not strained, is it?" It's more likely to be sterilized." HE quality of mere “ Not in these days comicbooks.com