Life, 1911-02-16 · page 13 of 44
Life — February 16, 1911 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon, titled "Historic Affinities," depicts Dr. Cook appealing to Queen Isabella of Castile. This references explorer Frederick Cook's disputed claims of Arctic discovery (circa 1908-1909), sarcastically comparing his credibility problems to historical patronage. The exaggerated figures and crowns mock his attempts at legitimacy. Below, "Details That the City Neglects" critiques New York's negligent snow removal and sidewalk maintenance, arguing property owners shirk responsibility while contractors minimize costs and obstruct public access. The third section, "Hard on the Cotton Mills," addresses labor conditions in Rhode Island textile factories, noting workers—particularly hobble-skirt-wearing women—labor in poor conditions with minimal clothing despite cotton's high cost, exposing industrial exploitation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HISTORIC AFFINITIES Details That the City Neglects EW YORK spends millions a year in clearing away the snow from the streets and keeping the streets clean and is absurdly neglectful of some small matters that.very. much concern the public comfort and involve very little expense. It neglects almost entirely to make owners of vacant property take decent care of it and the sidewalks in front of it. Snow that falls on the sidewalks of such property is apt to lie until it melts. That is a great nuisance to pedestrians. It is very common in the most used Streets of the city. Such sidewalks should be cleaned by noon or earlier on the day of the snowfall, and the cost charged to the owner of the property. The city also neglects to make build- ing contractors minimize the obstruc- tion to the use of sidewalks that their operations involve. When they bridge “YLL TELL YUH, LADY—1I'M OF NoBLE _ the sidewalk they are apt to do it badly. BIRTH. ME MOTHER WAS THE DAUGHTER Necessary inconvenience the public must OF A SPANIS GRANDEE AN’ ME FATHER — put up with. Unnecessary inconvenience, " due to the laziness or indifference of con- WAS PART DUK DR, COOK AVPYALS TO QUEEN ISABELLA OP CASTILE tractors’ foremen, ought to get prompt notice and abatement from city inspec- tors. But it doesn't. Contractors con- sult their own convenience about obstruc- tions and the walking public scrambles by the best it can. Hard on the Cotton Mills VOICE from Rhode Island, speak- ing through the Evening Post, complains that cotton goods are in the doldrums, that people had been going without any but very needful clothes for a long time because of the high cost of living, that raw cotton is so high that the price of muslin can’t be much re- duced without loss, and that there is no use of reducing it because, just as the manufacturers were hoping that stocks of existing garments were exhausted, along came the hobble-skirt and women prompt- ly abanconed petticoats. The hobble- skirt ladies, he says, wear only about one- sixth as much cotton cloth as they did before the hobble-skirt mania caught them Hard on the mills, isn’t it! | Comicbooks-com