Life, 1911-06-01 · page 22 of 52
Life — June 1, 1911 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks upper-class summer hospitality anxieties. Whittler announces he's "solved" the problem of unwanted houseguests by hiring professional guests—described as deaf and dumb—to occupy his home every weekend. The joke targets the social obligation to host relatives and friends while exposing the absurdity and callousness of his solution: he can confine paid guests to the billiard room when tired of them, preventing "real" visitors from coming. The humor relies on early-20th-century class assumptions about servants and paid help as disposable, controllable, and less deserving of consideration than social equals. It satirizes both the wealthy's desperation to avoid family obligations and their casual dehumanization of working people hired for convenience.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE ECLIPSE, AS SEEN BY A Great Problem Solved “T'VE just done a great thing. They're coming to-morrow and every week- end during the summer,” said Whittler. “Who's coming?” asked Mrs. Whitt- ler. “Why, our professional guests, of course. * Explain -yourself.” “Every summer for years past we have been worn out by relatives and friends who come here for week-ends In order that we may have a little rest I have hired these people to come here every week during the summer; this will keep out everyone else, as we can properly say we have no room. Don't worry. They will cook their own meals, they're both deaf and dumb, and if we get tired of secing them around we can lock them up in the billiard room.” “IGE SE Coming! Coming!! Coming!!! (1918 tour) AME NATURE presents that warm-hearted and sunny artiste, SUMMER, in a repertoire of standard dramas for June, July and August The list of plays consists of many novelties, as wetl as the old established favorites, and includes: “The Sweet Girl Graduate,” “The Lure of Atlantic City “What Happened to Mexico,” “The Trippers,” “The Comedy of the Hammock,” “Canada’s Reciproc “He, She and the Moon,” “Old Crowns on New Kin “The Changing Sexes,” and } Double bill “The Joy Ride,” and “The Fine” Summer will be supported by the following sterling ar tists: Misses Icecream Soda, Peckaboo Hose, Electric Runa agement Ring, Picnic Lunch, Lady Moon, Naughty . Pommery Sec, Bathing Suit and Oscu Lation Messrs. Ciga Rette, Yachting Cap, Threepint Schooner, Tennis Racquet, Aero Plane, Boston Bull, White Suit, Play Ball, Seren Ade and Mos Quito Secure seats in advance for any performance without extra charge. NE thousand, one hundred and twenty-five miners were killed in the coal mines of Pennsylvania last year, ac cording to the report of the chief of the State Department of Mines. Whom the gods employ die young BAD) MW Mr. Honeymoon: om, MADGE, YOU LOOK SWEET ENOUGH TO EAT THIS MORNING! Waiter: aNp WILL THAT BE ALL, SIR?