Life, 1911-12-21 · page 19 of 44
Life — December 21, 1911 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct satirical pieces: **"A Promising Knight"** (top): A large illustration showing an armored knight jousting, likely satirizing wealthy collectors who treat art acquisition as a competitive sport—competing for prestige rather than genuine appreciation. **"Modern Philanthropist"** (left): A joke mocking wealthy philanthropists' stingy conditional charity. A millionaire promises his son only $5 for Christmas *if* the boy raises matching funds himself—exposing the hypocrisy of the ultra-rich who publicly pose as generous while being miserly in practice. **"Still Working"** (right): A brief dialogue satirizing disease transmission fears, likely referencing post-WWI anxieties about germs and the Mayflower's historical role in bringing disease to America—an ironic comment that Old World immigration itself was a "plague." **"Bringing Home the Christmas Dinner"** (bottom): A boy's fantasy of catching alligators and selling them as pocket-books—satirizing childhood entrepreneurial dreams and the commercialization of nature, possibly also mocking the alligator-skin luxury goods market. All pieces target wealth, greed, and social pretension.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A PROMISING KNIGHT ures to the auction shop and let the other collectors scram- | * = i s : Still Working ble for them. The value of collections is for collectors. Their use is “you can carry germs across the ocean, can’t you?” to furnish entertainment for people who have money to “T should say you could; look what the Mayfower spare. Their natural destiny is to be dispersed so that they did to this country!” may be gathered again at an increased price. So treated, they minister to pleasure; but permanently bestowed on shelves in a public depository they seem a little like fish out of water. Modern Philanthropist s HY are you sobbing, my little man?” “My pa’s a millionaire philanthro- pist.” “Well, well, that’s nothing to cry about.” “Tt ain't, ain't it? He’s just prom- ised to give me $5 to spend at Christ- mas, provided I raise a similar amount.” BRINGING HOME THE CHRISTMAS DINNER DREAM OF A LITTLE HOY WHO CAUGHT YOUNG ALLIGATORS AND SOLD THEM TO MAKE POCKET-BOOKS comicbooks.com