Life — July 29, 1909 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Departmental Ditties" - Modes of Address This satirical piece by Harry Graham critiques the confusion of proper forms of address across social classes and nationalities. The text mocks how bourgeois people struggle with correct titles for bishops, princes, and other dignitaries—whether to say "Your Grace," "Your Worship," or "Your Lordship." The accompanying illustration, titled "The Maxim Silencer," shows diners at a table equipped with what appear to be silencers (possibly mufflers or noise-suppression devices) protruding from their mouths. This is likely satirizing the social awkwardness of dinner conversation and the desire to suppress embarrassing verbal mistakes about proper forms of address—treating courtesy as a mechanical problem requiring technological "invention." The humor targets Victorian-era social anxiety about class etiquette.