Life, 1909-12-23 · page 26 of 28
Life — December 23, 1909 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising and subscription promotion** rather than political satire. The main content is a large advertisement for Life magazine subscriptions, cleverly written as a parody of Shakespeare's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy. The **central pitch** asks whether readers can afford to *not* subscribe to Life regularly—presenting subscription as a solution to missing the magazine's content and the mental distress this causes. It's a humorous guilt-based sales tactic, suggesting that regular readership ensures cheerfulness and mental well-being. The page also includes: - Travel advertisements (Bermuda cruises, world tours) - Evans' Ale holiday promotion - Reader letters ("We Stand Corrected") about hens and eggs - A promise of a free photogravure print for new subscribers The satire is gentle and self-aware—Life mocks its own sales desperation by invoking Shakespeare while simultaneously making an earnest subscription pitch.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIFE: L eBermuda Spekeal BY TWIN SCREW LINE. Largestand Fastest Steamer, ; Shower 8.8. Oceana, 8000 Tons 8. 8, Bermudian, 5530 Tons ‘ at The be Wireless on both Steamers: also bilge keels | with Mixing Vag BT Forty hours from frost to flowers. Sailings every Wednesday 13402. 40 and Saturday from New York in the season, . oper fat your de WEST INDI f Sent FREI or ‘changes te water. Acura 7. HOFFM Holiday Cheer and all of its accompaniments are promoted by Evans’ Ale —there's asmile and heartiness in every glass, Order a barrel contain- ing 10 doz, bottles and you will Enjoy the Season Order from your nearest Dealer or Lire Pustismixe Co., New York City. Gentlemen:—May I tell you about a good deed you have done? On December twenty-fifth in Brook- lyn fifteen hundred children that other- wise would have been without cheer will have a “Merry Christmas.” This is the way it happened: Our Tenement House Committee of the Woman's Municipal League met each month where there was a Lire calen- dar. The picture told its story so ef fectively that a committee for “ The Chil dren's Christmas for Children" was formed. We are doing more than a thousand stockings this first year, and that isn’t the end of the story, for already we are planning for next year. Will you accept our thanks for the use of the picture and rejoice with us in the happiness we anticipate for the children. Cordially yours, Axes Srowett. 1074 Drax Sr., Brooxtyx, Dec. 4, 1909 We Stand Corrected Dear Live: What particular breed of hens cluck when they lay eggs, a la illustration on page 843 on Dec. oth issue of Lire? My hens cluck to call their chickens and cackle when they lay eggs. Yours, Mrs. B. Sutxcnam Fiswxit. Ptaixs, N. Y., Dec. 9. And here we have been raising chick- ens for four years and knew better ¢ this ourselves. (Continued on page 931) | C49 Madison Ave., $6 Filth Ave, New York, o any ticketagent, + OF AKTHUR AMERN, See y, Quebec Figure 1910 For Wlostrated pampbiets with. f mation i set tt Sater saver. Scag = Ge & CO., Gen’ Agte., Quediee parts. “The ¢ (OS: COOK & SON, Fase. Agts WORLD TOURS SHENAE Poth eS. “ ie bape Speatman $095 AP Twelve Toursia 1910 forall parts 4), "Frente, TOS 1 Soainy Sicih i Libiorimndog 1 Europe. tacluding Oheratmmeres' DE POTTER TOURS (i) s24rdnax on tly, Frasee. Yoko Largest Line A regular subscriber to LIFE, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffe The slings and arrows of being obliged to admit that you didn’t see the last number and therefore missed the best thing of the week, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by subscribing regularly, end them; To read, to smile, To laugh; and by obeying that impulse and sending in five dollars at once to seventeen west thirty-first street, New York, for the most sprightly, artistic, wisest, wittiest, harmoniously cheer- ful and contemporaneously convivial and highly cultivated paper in the world — to end at once The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. Isn’t that a consummation Devoutly to be wished ? What You Get Every new subscriber to LIFE will receive free a handsome photo- gravure reproduction of Playing Bridge by Balfour Ker as a premium. Do something about it right away. Christmas is coming, and you need a new ra Ny Can you afford not to be a regular subscriber? Remember that cheerful ness is areal asset. Your mental attitude is everything. LIFE gives you some- thing you can get in no other way. Address 17 w 31, New York. woxing vat] Bilge. The te Mention this paper Why not send LIFE as a Christmas gift? CIGARETTES Try the Hadad. A better cigarette for less money. Direct by mail—no middleman’s profit for you to pa Positively pure Turkish Leaf. Postage aid 100 for $1.50 and guaranteed at that. Send your order now. B. WILDMAN & Co., New Haven, Conn, FOR THE MAN WHO WANTS THE BEST Supscription $5.00 Canadian $5.52 Foreign $6.01 comicbooks.com