Life, 1910-08-25 · page 9 of 40
Life — August 25, 1910 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate satirical pieces. **"Killing the Bird of Good Omen"** (top illustration) depicts a figure stabbing a bird, referencing Coleridge's *Rime of the Ancient Mariner*—a literary allusion to bringing bad luck through destructive actions. **"The Awful Prospects of Our Race"** (main article) reports on Dr. J.H. Kellogg of Michigan's dire prediction: insanity has doubled in thirty years, and at current rates, the entire world population will be insane by 2123. The piece sardonically questions whether these statistics prove anything definitive, suggesting the doom-saying may itself be overwrought. The accompanying images labeled "A Scandal Light" appear to illustrate moral or social decay. The satire criticizes both alarmist predictions about societal decline and the unreliable nature of statistics themselves.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
EACH TURNED HIS FACE WITH A GIASTLY PANO, AND CURSED MF WITH MIS EVE. —The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The Awful Prospects of Our Race WHOLE-SOULED prognostica- tor is Dr. J. H. Kellogg, of Michigan, who made an address the other day to the graduat- ing class of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Boston, He said that insanity had doubled in thirty years, that there are now thirty-four idiots or lunatics to every thousand persons, and that at the present rate the whole popula of the world will be crazy in the year 2175. That year is not far off—only two hundred and sixty-five years! When all the folks are crazy life will be con- siderably simplified. The most. stirring of contemporary troubles come from dis- arities of opinion and purpose between those of us who are crazy and those who are not yet so. Trouble comes, too, from the unwillingness of the unbalanced to recognize and respect surviving poise; but when everybody is crazy, and there are statistics to prove it, these bases of dispute must disappear. Dr. Kellogg points out that the hu- man race hereabouts is not doing well; that cance: physical degeneracy and chronic diseases are increasing; that heart disease has increased 135 per cent in thirty years and kidney diseases in 297 Massachusetts 165 per cent. Transcript troubles are all due to alcohol, tobacco. tea and coffee What about playing-cards, horse-rac ing, stock-gambling, muck-raking, the diseases associated with immorality, di voree, prohibition, the tariff, and the seven deadly sins? Are they no longer operative for our undoing? To us the four popular physical poisons above enumerated look like bagatelles compared with the things that corrupt the spirit and through that the body Will some learned person take hold of this Michigan doctor's statistics and work out a different Statistics can prove anythi Holy Writ i Meanwhile we He says— so the reports—that these nswer to them? , and do it If is n more adjustable must get such comfort as we can in remem- bering that we shall all probably die eventually of something, and that it docsn’t greatly whether it is from heart dis kidney disease or something else. To be sure, we don’t want to go crazy, and we know that too many people ar crease of insanity, so far as doubtless due to the increased velocity of the revolutions of the wheels of life, and to that, it is fair to hope, humanity will presently get adjusted A Waning Love USBAND (coming home late and finding wife asleep) hash all she cares f'me. Doeshn't think it worth while t’shtay ‘wake an’ call me a beasht. matter A SCANDAL LIGHT comicbooks.com