Life, 1908-06-18 · page 16 of 28
Life — June 18, 1908 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several distinct satirical pieces: **"Science Refutes a Calumny"** mocks President William Howard Taft using Christian Science doctrine (Mrs. Eddy's teachings). The joke: if obesity is merely a "belief," then Taft's substantial weight proves his self-belief rather than Roosevelt's influence. It's political mockery of Taft during the 1912 Republican Convention, when he faced Theodore Roosevelt's challenge. **"With Life's Apologies to a Lady"** corrects Life's earlier misidentification of actress Annie Russell's age in a portrait—she was in her late eighties, not seventies. It's a humorous admission of error. **"Spunk in the Right Place"** praises a woman (Helen Wallbert) who rescued her sister from drowning with practical, no-nonsense courage rather than hysteria. **"Riddance of Rubbish"** questions what libraries should do with discarded books, sarcastically suggesting printing on digestible peptonized paper for "intellectual generation." It critiques wasteful accumulation of forgotten literature. The page includes period photographs of actors from the 1870s-1890s.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
"LIP E # Science Refutes a Calumny i BESITY,” Mrs. Eddy says, ‘‘is an adipose belief of yourself as a sub- stance.” So reports Georgine Milmine in McClure’s Magazine. Thrice welcome is this nugget of knowledge at this particular time, when the Republican Convention is meeting. It has been charged that Taft was the corporeal expression of a belief in Roosevelt. To refute this insinuation, it is now only necessary to lead the candidate to the scales. Deduct the usual tare for bones and clothes, and there you have it—three hundred pounds or thereabouts of belief in HIMSELF as a sub- stance. ‘That willdo. Never mind if the belief is a trifle adipose. There is plenty of it. Thank you, Mrs. Eddy! With LIFE'S Apologies to a Lady HE portrait of a famous artiste, recently given in Lire, had for title, “Annie Russell in the Seventies.” Lire was about ten years ahead of the times in that statement. It should have read “tin the late eighties.” In the “late seventies” she was acting children’s parts. Every ten years added to Miss Russell’s career is ten years’ gain for dramatic art in America. Spunk in the Right Place HERE are some stories in the papers that you hope are true. They ought to be. As this passage, for example, out of the World's story of how Mabel Wallbert fell into Gravesend Bay and Helen Wallbert got her out: “What do you think she said to me?" said Mabel, faintly, for she had not emerged completely, “She said, when she grabbed me in the water : * Now, sce here, Mabel, hold ontome. We don’t want any white coffins in our house. I've got hold of this boat, all right ‘That was the right spirit, and whether or not Helen made the address, she acted its sentiments. E RY monument is a tribute to forgetfulness. Li Ia MR, WILTON LACKAYE, ABOUT 1890 Riddance of Rubbish HAT is to be done about literature’s dis- concerting tendency to become lumber? It isn’t a very uncommon public library which buys a hundred copies of a new novel by one of the giants or giantesses, and al- though every copy is fiercely in demand, at first, it isn't as long as a hundred days, per- haps, until there is no further call whatsoever, where- upon the brave array of volumes, not to put too fine a point upon it, is so much dead horse. It won't do to assume that a Carnegie is destined to arise every ten or a dozen years and provide sump- tuous shelter for these accumulations. To lay that flattering unction to our souls were fatuous on many considerations, but especially so in view of the definite announcement that the Constructive Statesmanship of the Republican Party, at once it gets the approach- ing election off its hands, will proceed to revise the tariff, the steel schedule with the rest. Is it possible to hark back to antiquity, and find a way to write our books on useful bricks? Or would it be more in keeping with our originality to print them on peptonized paper, with predigested ink, thus to render them doubly devourable by an intellectual generation? Ramsey Benson MR, JOHN DREW, THE LATE MR. CEORGE PARKES AND MISS ADA REMAN, IN THE SEVENTIES comicbooks.com