Life, 1910-03-10 · page 15 of 36
Life — March 10, 1910 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page contains two distinct pieces of social satire: **"Little Chats With Vivivisectors"** (left): A pointed attack on animal testing. A speaker addresses a hostile audience of vivisectionists (animal researchers), accusing them of torturing animals for mere curiosity while hiding from public scrutiny and "Public Opinion." The heckling crowd—repeatedly shouting "Shut up!" and "Kill him!"—reveals the satirist's view of experimenters as brutal and anti-intellectual. The piece reflects early-20th-century animal welfare activism. **"Taken Literally"** (bottom): A comic misunderstanding where a man's boast about wearing silk socks when rich is interpreted literally—his wife imagines him wearing *only* silk socks. The joke mocks husbands' impractical bragging. **"Greatness"** and **"Another Definition"** (right): Brief humorous pieces about pretension and faith, using self-deprecating wit. The page reflects *Life*'s role as a vehicle for progressive social criticism wrapped in humor and satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
o “Little Vivisectors LEMEN: I fully appreciate the honor of addressing such a pe- culiar body of— a what? ch a peculiarly indispensable body of men. Your persistence in your un usual line of work is admitted even by your enemies. Hear! Hear! You certainly display Those men are exceptional who, for the rare qualities gratification of a morbid curiosity, sub ject unoffending animals to the agonies of hell, You know nothing about it! That a civilized actively resent these useless should crueltics community is Oh, shut up! inevitable. you have discov real_value— Go home!" That ered nothing of any tout! is not surprising. pected that you the to do it. But you yourselves care litle for results. You Liar! Idiot! —keen for these delights, so depend- ent on the excitement, that your lives would he- Go to the devil! Nobody ever ex would. It is not way are so —dull without them. in secret You do them because you know they will not the light. You know that Public Opinion, already awakening, would send you—— Hit him again? Put him out! jail or to the asylum. But, keep with your orgies, your symposia of blood and suf- fering. For a time, perhaps, y continue to- Imbecile! Lying asst —fool your own families and the New York Times, But the day is coming, and it is coming soon, when— Oh, shut up! Put him out! other word! Kill him! Gentlemen, I thank you for your kind attention S {ITH was’ a fine-looking man. was hatehet-faced and —_beetle- browed and gimlet-eyed and lantern jawed and apple-checked, with mutton chop whiskers and a square chin. bear either to gentlemen, on a can Not A Description He HE: Our host appears to be quite an impossible sort of person. He: I should consider him highly im- probable, to say the least TAKEN LITERALLY WHEN 1 AM RICH ILL WEAR NOTHING BUT SILK socks! 439 Greatness HAT time I con the verse of Pope And find a faulty rhymeless line, 1 murmur softly: “ Alee’s dope Is much like mine."* I scan the lines of Avon's Bard; Frequent the grammar faults I strike; Whereat I swell, and say: “Old pard, We're much alike.” I read that Irving couldn't add, That two plus two would floor him flat. And then I think not so bad I'm just like that.’ Lately I read The Life of Poe— A drink, it says, he never missed I'm would call a Hibitionist not what you Pro- Of Burns's conquests I have read Byron’s a Of me it never I hate the sex irs were multiplex ; ‘an be said In me these many traits combined— Such qualities—should And yet, you know, I've con That they do not Franklin P. Adams. ana lot © to find Another Definition “DAPA, what is Faith? “Well, my boy, tl brother sleeps, but I've never scen him do it. Yet if I believe he does, that's faith.” She: How snockrinc! comicbooks.com