Life, 1911-07-13 · page 17 of 44
Life — July 13, 1911 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces of early 20th-century American satire: **Top Image ("Gee! Here Comes a Lady!"):** A photograph-style illustration depicts children playing by a riverbank. The caption's humor derives from children's crude reaction to a woman's arrival—typical of Life's genteel mockery of childhood behavior and social impropriety. **Bottom Cartoon:** A mother scolds her son Willie for eating messily at a picnic, demanding proper behavior. Willie's response—"I thought this was a picnic"—satirizes the disconnect between adult expectations of decorum and children's natural, uninhibited enjoyment. The joke critiques overly strict parenting norms. **"Wholesome Financial Inquiry" Section:** This brief text mocks financial journalists for writing incomprehensibly, suggesting their obscurity stems from either excessive knowledge or ignorance—a satirical jab at newspaper financial reporting. The broader theme: Life mocks rigid Victorian social conventions, particularly regarding child-rearing and proper behavior, positioning itself as a voice of gentle, knowing humor about American manners and pretension.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
to do too much for him; for, after all, only two things are possible. We can keep him in health, and we can help him to start more or less where we are leaving off. He may not believe it all—he probably won't—but we ought to convince him when we can. We can do no more than this. As for training a boy, it is our personal opinion—based upon expericnce—that nothing succeeds like an old-fashioned licking. We are fully aware that this will be regarded by many as decadent wisd But there is a certain body of facts that the real parents of real boys secretly hand down to cach other from generation to generation, and which persists in spite of fads and medical delusions. One of these is that, ter all, nothing succeeds with a boy like a licking properly administered. Your lofty notions of morality, your sense of dignity and your wsthetic standards, the boy does not under- stand, But once in your lives you should mect him on the field of battle, and you should be the victor. Your victory, on that occasion, should be complete. After that the boy will respect you, be you as highly moral as you wish to be. It is a great thing to be a boy. No great man ever really recovers from it. TOL. M. Wholesome Financial Inquiry HY is it so difficult to learn anything from the average financial article in a newspaper? Is it because the writers know much or too little? Gee! MERE COMES A Lapy!” Extra! Extra! MAGNATE gave an interview to the press the other day and neglected to say he had the fullest confidence in the basic conditions of the country and in the integrity of its lea Mother: wittte, You'Re EATING LIKE A PIG. YOU BEHAVE PROPERLY? “wily, 1 THOUGHT THIS WAS A PICNIC.” WHY CAN'T comicbooks.com