Life, 1910-08-25 · page 18 of 40
Life — August 25, 1910 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Modern Osculation"** satirizes early 20th-century anxieties about hygiene and germs. The poem mocks overly sanitized kissing—where lovers spray lips with antiseptic, use germicide, and wear wire masks to prevent disease transmission. It contrasts this sterile modern approach with romantic, unsanitary kissing of the past, lamenting that contemporary medical knowledge has eliminated passion from intimacy. **"Out of the Frying Pan"** responds to Rockefeller's claim that high food prices drive people back to farming. The author argues this ignores that rural life now requires expensive cars, gasoline, and road maintenance—so people escape city costs only to face rural ones. The piece suggests mechanization means fewer people are needed for actual work, and that while country life offers leisure and cheaper food production, wealth-building requires cities. The cartoon depicts someone in a frying pan—literalizing the idiom of escaping one problem only to face another.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
306 Modern Osculation "THREE, only three, my darling, Sterilized, sanative, slow; Not like the swift and careless ones We used to know When we kissed because we loved each other, Simply to have some fun; And lavished kisses as the Summer Lavishes sun, But as they kiss whose lips are sprayed With antiseptic brine; When nothing is left to give, except An anodyne. The first kiss, oh, my darling, Is sprayed with germicide; For many noxious little germs In red lips hide. second hiss, my darli Through antiseptic gauze. Is truly in accordance with Hygienic Laws. The third kiss, oh, my darling, My love, I cannot see! This fine wire mask is horrible It seems to me. And though, of course, azotic germs We must forestall— This one last kiss, my The worst of all! darling, is Carolyn Weils Soup R. COHEN soup. Miss Owex: So I (dining) : 1 love noodle hear, to be constructed Dr, Po khurst Reform may begin with * but unless it goes on with it is barren. Reform work is pr on the line of “ Don't. T is, indeed. “don’t do" NOT A STRIKING SCENE FROM FACTORY Out of the Frying Pan The high prices of foodstuffs are sen people back to the farm.—Mr. Rockefelle ND alas! there they meet the high prices of motor cars, gasoline, rub: ber tires and the expense of collisions and speed fines. And besides that, they are liable to have to pay something for roads. The truth probably is that the high price of living on this earth at this time prevents a good many valuable citizens from coming to this planet to live at all Nevertheless, let us not It’s all in the day's work. the immense progress in the develop ment and perfection of mechanisms mean if not that the Earth is to get along with less population? We are etting to the point where civilization ill need comparatively few people be- sides machine tenders to do its work For purposes of society, of art, of the government, of teaching. preaching, inventing, and a few other things we have got to have folks. Be- yond these employments the great hu- man industry will be, apparently, to build and tend machines. Nevertheless, it seems to be truc, as Mr. Rockefeller says, that country life is increasing in popularity. needs a certain amount of it every year and geared to suitable mechanisms— trolley cars, motor cars, motor boats, electric light, telephones, power pumps, rural delivery and such aids to labor and communication—it isn’t half bad. And you can raise things to eat in the country if you have time. Potatoes, peas and corn grow better there than in lose heart What docs nursery, of Everybody BARGAIN TO CONSUMEK—DIKECT town, Raising chickens has become half mechanical, but even incubator chickens are more conveniently manufactured in the country, and when made sometimes edible. Most of the still laid in the country pending the per fecting of a machine to make them ¢ will beat hens. Moncy is best made in cities, but whereas in times heretofore the country has been regarded as the great feeder of cities, we see more and more disposi tion to shift the shoe on to the o’ foot, and expect the cities to do the full share as feeders of the country The fun you can have with money in cities doesn’t compare with the fun you can have with it in the country. Peo)’ are finding that out more and more. To be poor in the country is somewhat tc dious. To be well off in the country is quite a different occupation. And whereas in the city ordinary thrift calls for the minimization of families, in the country people must have socicty and are willing even to raise children in order to get it And so the checks and balances of contemporary life keep always at work. Mechanisms tend to depopulation, but they alleviate country life, and country life when duly alleviated invites popu- lation E. S. M. APPINESS would seem to consist of not longing for the things that would make us happy: HAT'S the use of building air castles if you can’t afford a fying machine ? comicbooks.com