Life, 1906-01-11 · page 5 of 26
Life — January 11, 1906 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Image:** A well-dressed man in formal attire bends toward a small child in a white dress, with the caption: "PAPA, CAN YOU FIX DOLLY? I OPERATED ON HER AND ALL HER UTENSILS ARE COMING OUT." This appears to be a humorous domestic scene playing on the contradiction between a child's innocent medical play and actual surgical consequences—satirizing either parental incompetence or the child's mimicry of her father's profession. **"Chicago" Poem:** The accompanying verse critiques Chicago's political corruption, filthy conditions, and moral degradation. It references "the Pig" (likely meaning the city's livestock industry), "municipal affairs," and describes the town as "loose and breezy, but original, at least." **"The Usual Way":** A brief dialogue satirizing workplace inefficiency—following impulse before careful consideration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER, “PAPA, CAN YOU PIX DOLLY? 1 OPERATED ON NER AND ALL HER Chicago. N Chicago where the Pig is The prevailing source of Trade, And where everything as big is As by mortals can be made, One is apt to feel in danger Of exaggerating when One discourses to a stranger Of its magnitude and men, In its manners, {ree and easy,— None imported from the East ; In its morals, loose and breezy, But original, at least ; In municipal affairs it Seems to manage as it likes, And its politics prepares it For abundant mobs and strikes. As for climate,—frigid, —torri Always either one and mean, And the smoke there is so horrid That the town is never clean : What it cultivates is bluster, Business and brag and bluff, As material for lustre These are counted good enough. Wild it is, but not so woolly As it was some years ago, And its mind is made up fully That all other towns are slow : UTENSILS ARE CoMiNG ovT." Pluck and pull and push yards Hold the Nation's store of wheat, And in Swift's and Armour’s stockyards Is the world’s supply of meat! The dock- Felix Carmen. The Usual Way. ““ DAPA, what is your sober second thought ?”* “It's usually what we make the mis- take of following, when we should have followed the impulsive, correct, first thought.” comicbooks.com -