Life, 1906-06-07 · page 26 of 42
Life — June 7, 1906 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces: 1. **"Time for a Change"** (left column): Mocks reform spelling advocates. The author argues English spelling, while illogical, shouldn't be changed—citing bizarre examples (decalog, ax, center). The satire suggests that if we've survived this long with archaic spelling, abandoning it now is pointless. This reflects early 20th-century debates over simplified spelling. 2. **"First Aid to the Uninjured"** (top cartoon): Shows a couple on steps; the bridegroom warns "don't worry darling!" The caption satirizes newlyweds' anxieties about trivial matters. 3. **"And He Walked On"** (right column): Parodies *Pilgrim's Progress*, where a despairing man in the Slough of Despond dismisses Christian's optimistic suggestions about future dramatization and publicity. The joke: even promising him literary/political fame doesn't cheer him—darker than the original allegory. 4. **"St. Peter" (bottom)**: A New York hotel proprietor arrives at heaven but wasn't pre-registered, getting rejected. Light satire on American hospitality/bureaucracy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Time for a Change HE feature of our reformed spelling is that we have been so long about it. Who can forget his own early struggles with Eng- lish words? Every child of ordinary intelli- gence, when guided by his better instincts, would write decalog instead of decalogue, ax instead of axe, bun instead of bunn, center instead of And when it came to asthetic, comptroller, apothegm, draught, ecumenical, homeopathy, ma- necuvre and an infinity of similar af- fectations, we feel like giving up all hopes of education. The splendid disregard for pronun- ciation in the spelling of through, tough, though, plough and the other members of that impossible family has been a joke for generations. most astonishing centre—and so on forever. FIRST AID TO THE UNINJURED Bridegroom: pos't—woRky—DAi Professor Thomas, of Colum| versity, puts i er. Many have come to ng somewhere seriously the fault is not with the 1 cannot be corrected either by a return, J methods of fifty years ago or by any devices of the newest new education; for it is inherent in that which Lord Lytton called, aptly enough, our accursed spelling. Had we made as little progress in some other fields as we have in spelling, we should still be eating with two-pronged forks of steel, using flintlocks, reading by candle-light, losing our teeth when forty years old, and be bled by barbers. NOWOMAN is as pretty as she thinks she is, or as homely as some other woman thinks her. And He Walked On “A! AS!” moaned the man in the lough of Despond, when Chris- tian came near to him. “Why do you sigh?” inquired Chris- tian, with that ingenuous curiosity which helped out so much in the Pilgrim's Progress “Tce no future for any of us,” wailed the man in the Slough of Despond. “Be of good cheer, my friend,” coun- selled Christian. “After a while we will be dramatized; the Man with the Muck Rake will get into literature and politics; and there is no telling what individual lines of publicity may not be opened for cach of us. But the man merely walked on and on into the Slough of Despond. Ss‘ PETER: Who are you? New Arrivat: I’m the proprietor of a New York hotel . St. Peter (coldly): Sorry, but you didn’t wire ahead for a room. comicbooks.com