Life, 1907-10-31 · page 7 of 22
Life — October 31, 1907 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces: **"Give Us Prettier Money"** (left column): A satirical article arguing against Saint Gaudens' proposed coin designs featuring an Irish-born woman as the model. The author objects that the face is in such high relief coins won't stack properly. The piece ironically suggests accepting the design while proposing alternative colored banknotes instead—an absurd compromise clearly mocking the resistance to the new coin aesthetic. **"Their First Breakfast"** (photograph): A domestic scene showing what appears to be a young couple at a meal, likely illustrating themes of newlywed inexperience or domestic life. **"The School Bored"** (silhouette cartoon): A satirical illustration showing students in a classroom, commenting on educational tedium. The page also includes brief dictionary-style definitions of "Others" and "Poetry," typical of Life's humorous, miscellaneous content format.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Give Us Prettier Money HAT about the Saint Gau- dens designs for our gold coins? Arewe to have them? It was reported that the face on the coins was in such high relief that the coins would not stack, but surely that drawback could be overcome. Then there is the ob- jection made at the September convention of the Independent Order of Americans that the face on the coin being that of an Irish- born girl in whom Mr. Saint Gaudens found the model he wanted, the coins ought to be rejected. That amusing protest only increases public interest in the new designs. It recalls the experience of a recent traveler who journeyed from New York to New Haven. In the car were a score or two of new-come immigrants who wore brighter colors than is common here, and the women had no hats, and the traveler put them down as Italians. The more he watched them the more familiar they looked to him. “They look won- derfully like the rest of us,” he said to himself, and then sudden- ly he knew that they were not Italians, but Irish. He is not surprised that Saint Gaudens, himself half Irish, found the typ- ical American face that he wanted in a handsome Irish waitress. * Let us have Saint Gaudens’s Irish-girl coins by all means, and the suggestion of different col- ored bank-notes—lead, green, brown, orange, pink and white—has estheticattractionsalso. Ourassociations with money of late have been much too somber. Pink twenty-dollar bills and white fifty-dollar bills would be a chee THEIR FIRST BREAKFAST ing influence, and maybe it would be easier to hang on to such pretty moncy— and to the pretty new gold pieces than it has been of late to keep in touch with the money We know. THE SCHOOL BORED Others ISTRESS: Why, Bridget, it seems to me you want very | for one who has had so little experience. Brincet: Sure, mum, ain't it harder for me when I don’t know how? © Wages POETRY is that manner of literary composition which exhibits, more or less obviously, the metrical and rhyth- mical form; which so chooses its words as to affect the ear with a musical flow of sound; which, by means of suggestive imagery, proj upon the sympathetic mind a succession of strongly wrought pictures, and which doesn’t sell. comicbooks.com