Life, 1910-06-30 · page 25 of 41
Life — June 30, 1910 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous domestic sketch by Douglas Jerrold featuring **Mrs. Caudle lecturing her husband in bed**—a popular Victorian-era comedy premise about nagging wives. The satire targets **working-class household economics and marital dynamics**. Mrs. Caudle complains about her husband's ingratitude for meals, specifically cold mutton and lack of puddings, while she manages meager finances. She lectures him on waste—he spends money freely outside the home but objects to food costs. She threatens bankruptcy if he's extravagant, contrasts his behavior unfavorably to other men, and uses emotional manipulation (comparing herself to enslaved people, invoking Christian morality). The **caricature** is of a domineering, penny-pinching wife whose constant complaints and moral scolding are presented as comic rather than sympathetic. The separate cartoon below shows a French Revolution scene—unrelated political commentary. The humor relies on mid-19th-century gender stereotypes about wives as both financial controllers and emotional nags, a dynamic now recognized as depicting relationship dysfunction rather than comedy.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
//, V0 Mrs. Caudle Lectures Her Husband EY DOUGLAS JERROLD “What Lam grumbling about. now? It’s very well for you to ask that! I'm sure I'd better be out of the world than—there now, Mr, Caudle; there you are again! 1 shall speak, sir. It isn't often | open my mouth, Heaven knows! But you like to hear nobody alk but yourself. You ought to have married a negro slave and not any respectable woman “You're to go about the house look- ing like thunder all the day and I'm not to say a word. Where do you think pudding’s to come from every day? You show a nice example to your children, you do; complainin and turning your nose up at a sweet piece of cold mutton because there’ no pudding! You go a nice way ke “em extravagant—teach ‘em nice s to begin the world with. Do you know what puddings cost; or do you think they fly in at the window? “You hate cold mutton. The more shame for you, Mr. Caudle. I'm sure you've the stomach of a lord, you have. No, sir; I didn't choose to hash the mutton. It’s very easy for you to sa hash it, but I know what a joint loses in hashing. It’s a day's dinner the less, if it’s a bit. Yes, I dare say, other people may have puddings with cold mutton. No doubt of it; and other people become bankrupts. “But if ever you get into the Gazette, it sha'n't be my fattlt—no, I'll do my duty as a wife to you, Mr. Caudle; you shall never have it to say that it was my house keeping that brought you to beggary No; you may sulk at the cold m ha!’ I hope you'll never live to w such a piece of cold mutton as we to-day! And you may threaten to go to a tavern to dine; but with your pres- ent means not a crumb of pudding do you get from me. You shall have nothing but the cold joint—nothing, as I'm a Christian sinner. “Yes, there you are, throwing those fowls in my face a ! in! [know you once brought me a pair of fowls: I know it; but-you were mean enough “PRE to want to stop 'em out of my week's money! Oh, the selfishness—the shab- biness of men! They can go out and throw away pounds upon pounds with a pack of people, who laugh at ‘em afterward; but if ‘it's ng wanted for their own homes their poor wives hunt for it. 1 wonder you don't blush to name those fowls again! I wouldn't be so little for the world, Mr, Caudle, What are you going to do? Going to get up? Don't make yourself ridiculous, Mr. Caudle. I can't say a word to you like any other wife but you must threaten to get up. Do be ashamed of yourself. * Puddings, indeed! Do you. think I'm made of puddings? Didn't you have some boiled rice three weeks ago? Besides, is this the time of year for puddings? It's all very well if | had money cnough allowed me like any other wife to keep the house with; then, indeed, I might have preserves like ‘any other woman; now, it’s im- possible; and it's cruel—yes, | Mr. Candle, ‘crucl—of you to expect it “Apples aren't so dear, are they? [ know what apples are,’ Mr. Caudle, Without your telling me. But [ sup: pose you want something more t apples for dumplings? 1 suppose su! costs something, doesn’t it? And th: how it is. That's how one expense brings another and that’s how people to ruin, Pancakes, indeed! Pray, Mr. 1193 it's no use your saying » me to let you go to sleep; I sha'n't pray; do you know the price of eggs just now? There's not an egg you can trust to under seven and eight shilling; well, you've only just to reckon up how many eggs—don't lic there swearing at the eggs in that man- ner, Mr, Caudle, unless you expect the bed to let you fall through. You call yourself a respectable tradesman, | su pose? Ia! I only wish people knew you as well as I do! Swearing at eggs, indeed! But I'm tired of this usage, Mr. Caudle; quite tired of it; and I don’t care how soon it is ended “I'm sure | do nothing but work and labor, and think how to make the most of ¢verything, and this is how I am rewarded."—" Mrs. Caudle's Cur- fain . An Epitaph \ lovely young lady | mourn in my rhymes : She was. pleasant, good-natured and civil sometimes. Her figure was good: she had very fine eyes, And her talk was a mixture of foc and wise. Her adorers were many, and one of them said: “She waltzed she’s d her well! It’s a pity ud, George Jo. A CARICATURE OF THE FRENCH SOTARLES AT PARIS, FEBRUARY CARICATURE SOUS LA REPUBLIQ “DEAR OBJECTS OF MY CARE, I WHAT SAUCE YOU ARE TO RE EATEN.” FROM CHAMPPL! FOLLOWING IS THE CONVERSATIO HAVE T WE DON'T WANT TO BE EATEN “YOU ARE DEPARTING FROM THE QUESTION. AT AL IN, SHOWING AN “ ASSEMBLY OF THE RY'S “HISTOIRE DE LA ASSEMBLED YOU TO ASCERTAIN: WITH. comicbooks.com