Life, 1908-03-19 · page 5 of 24
Life — March 19, 1908 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon ("St. Patrick's Day in the Evening"):** Eight cherubic figures in formal attire with top hats parade in a line, appearing festive and progressively intoxicated. This satirizes St. Patrick's Day celebrations, particularly among English and Irish immigrants, mocking the holiday's association with excessive drinking. **Main Illustration ("To Exchange—A Lower Berth for an Upper"):** A disheveled man lies beneath a train berth in cramped quarters, depicted miserably. The caption suggests dark humor about travel discomfort or perhaps a social commentary on class distinctions in railway accommodations. **Text Section:** Discusses English attitudes toward steam heating versus traditional methods, suggesting cultural resistance to modern conveniences. The overall page uses humor to critique social customs and technological attitudes of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum HE English, it seems, have at length been forced to put steam heat into their hotels, or, more properly, have chosen to pvt in steam heat rather than displease their paying American guests. They profess not to care for steam heat themselves. The truth is, these English live much outdoors, that bourn which we, with just contempt, leave to teamsters, tramps and such occasional lunatics as had rather be well than up to date. That is to say, they depend for their warmth on the circulation of the blood, an imitation of the modern heating plant which, though quite clever in its way, is still an imit: and far from coming up to its original. Where we take advantage of the gifts of our civilization and go all winter long without once being warmed by our blood, the English have yet to depart from the crude old methods of remote antiquity. Of course, it is like an Englishman to deny that we order things better. He will gladly shiver till his teeth rattle for the sake of his absurd insularity. Ramsey Benson. No Society OES she love you? Undoubtedly Then what makes you so downcast? She doesn’t seem to love any one else, and there’s such a dearth of tenants in her heart that it’s lonely there. WARNES —A LOWER BERTH FOR AN UPPER