Life, 1907-04-25 · page 17 of 24
Life — April 25, 1907 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page satirizes the cruel fashion of artificially restraining horses' heads in exaggerated, upright positions on New York streets. The top illustration shows a young woman receiving matrimonial advice, while the main article "Off with the High Check" criticizes this animal abuse practice. The satire targets "silly women" and "ignorant grooms" who adopted this trend thinking tortured horses looked stylish. The author praises the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (S.P.C.A.) and trustee Joseph Seligman for confronting Fifth Avenue offenders and removing the cruel check-reins. The piece compares these abusers to other public nuisances—reckless drivers and train smokers—arguing all deserve disciplinary instruction. The final aphorism mocks wealthy people with no character, suggesting mere money cannot create genuine worth. The satire uses class criticism and moral outrage to champion animal welfare reform.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A FEW WORDS OF ADVICE TO A YOUNG LADY CONTEMPLATING MATRIMONY Off with the High Check At LAST the Society for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Animals has got after the idiots who use extremely tight check-reins on their horses. The practice of checking a horse’s head up preposter- ously high is of ancient origin, but had fallen into disuse until, f three or four years ago, it began to be revived. Since then horses in increasing numbers have been seen in the streets of New York with their heads checked up into absurd and torturing positions. No good horseman ever puts a check-rein to this extreme use. He is deterred from it partly because it hurts and frets the horse and inter- feres with his freedom of action, and partly because he hates the sight of a horse with his head pulled up out of the natural position. ‘The people who do it are people who don’t know any better—silly women, who think a tortured horse looks stylish; ignorant and brutal grooms, who have the same opinion. Oncea fashion of this sort is allowed to get a hold, an army of brainless people with money rush to follow it, and the streets soon fill with the evidences of their fatuity. The papers have reported that on April 4 the S. P. C. A., represented by Mr. Joseph Seligman, a trustee, and Officer Harpon, got after the high-check infatuatees on Fifth Avenue, took the instruments of cruelty off of some of the horses, and gave notice that the practice should be stopped in New York, even if it became necessary to station officers the length of Fifth Avenue to do it. Good for Mr. Seligman and for the S. P. C. A. and its officers! The high-check is an abomination that ought not to have a friend in the world, and, as a fact, has mighty few. It is an impudent, absurd and indefensible abuse;'a public nui- sance that shouts to be abated. The high-check idiots deserve the same kind of discipline and retributive instruction as the automobile scorchers and the street-car spitters and smokers. They are people who don’t know how to behave and must be taught. OME men worth a million dollars would not be worth any- thing if they did not have any money. comicbooks.com