Life, 1911-12-28 · page 30 of 41
Life — December 28, 1911 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page's main satirical poem attacks women's fashion for its hidden human and animal costs. "The Impudent Bard" addresses a fashionably dressed woman, cataloging how her appearance represents death and exploitation: her fur boas and muffs required dead egrets and seals; her calfskin shoes came from slaughtered animals; her hair was "purchased" (implying it came from exploited Chinese workers); her makeup involved chemical processing causing "woe and pain." The poem's central irony: elegant ladies appear refined while unknowingly complicit in mass death. The satirical question—"Do you know—and do you care?"—targets upper-class women's obliviousness to the human and environmental costs of their luxury goods, a common Progressive Era critique of consumer culture and labor exploitation. The piece assumes readers share disgust at this disconnect between beauty and brutality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Florida - CUBA—AUGUSTA—SOUTH fri any By the Impudent Bard Lady, lady, passing fair! As I view your beauty rare, OFFICES: w Coldly radiant, like a star, NEW YORK The Standard Railway of the Soath A How I wonder what you are! ‘Brway, cor. 0th’ St. Your weight, 90 pounds, I guess— poston Four Fine Trains Daily, with All-Steel, ght, 90 pounds, I gi 248 Washington St. Electric Lighted Pullmans—Dining Cars All the rest of you is dress! PHILADELPHIA qT Leaving New York from Penn, R. R. Station? “Florida & West Indian Limited” 10.16 A.M. New York & Florida Special”. . 1.26 P. Palmetto Limited” . Some is hair and s Fluff and feathers and all that! 2019 Chestnut St, BALTIMORE Light & German Sts, Say, how many lives were paid That you might be thus arrayed? Your warm, Epitaphs of s ble boa, sable muff— Twelve small lives were not ¢ Egrets six were surely slain or your headgear, art and plain. srry coat reveals veral seal ough. These your dainty hands are hid In the skin of slaughtered kid. Calfskin of the kind called “ ooze” cost a life) your shoe: Your hair—yours by purchase, please— Was shorn from off a slave Chinese; Silks and laces that you wear Represent vast toil and care. Your “complexion "—chemic bane !— Cost a world of woe and pain. Lady, that you may Thousands throw their lives away. Do you ever in your pride, Count its cost in homicide? Lady, lady, passing fair, Do you know—and do you care? —Chicago Ni be gay, Rheumatism—Gout, Neuritis successfully treated Crestview Sanatorium, Greenwich, Ct., Tel. 105. Mr. Balfour and the Scotch Humorist Once an old Scotch weather prophet at Whittinghame informed Mr. Balfour that “It’s gaun to rain seventy-twa days, sir.” “Come, come!” said the statesman! “Surely the world was entirely flooded in forty d. “ Aye, aye!" was the re: the warld wasna’ sae weel d is noo."—Strand Magazine. ponse, “ but ined as it Intrinsic Values “Why did you sclect Charles instead of George?” asked Maude “Well,” replied Maymic, “George said I had eyes like violets, checks like wild roses, shell-like cars and lips like cherries.” Very pretty.” “Yes. But Charles said I had cyes like diamonds, teeth like pearls and lips like rubies. It seemed to me that his ideals were much more practical. —Washington Star. GREAT BEAR SPRING WATER “Ite purity has made ¢ famous” | Mperaries, also WASHINGTON ~~ M0 New York Q Sek. We Florida Resorts. “Coast Line Florida Mail” > : Superior Roadway, Equipment and Service to Augusta, Summerville, Thoma: The Egyptian Cigarette of Quality AROMATIC DELICACY MILDNESS PURITY * At your club or dealer's THE SURBRUG CO., Makers, New York See EUROPE in an AUTO! from railway trains. Stop when bere you please. Kave Tim nenjoy more, and really 8B Pile Tare tor itive tee best Motor Gare tor British and ‘open and closed i Continental Touring at the most reason ableTari@ in Earope. Literetar copy of ‘Through Europe in an on request. Write ue about everyth tatled, “tree to do with Motoring Abroad! The INTERNATIONAL AUTOTRAVEL SOCIETY 26 to 39, Morning Post Buildings, Strand, London, England. 5 ee "iepatater’” Moving Picture Plays Nodiatogue. Comedy, Drama and Prompt payment guaranteed. Write for circular of instructions, LURIN MANCYACTCRING CO. 2007 Indiana Aveane, Phila, Pa. The Minister's Usefulness Among the members of a fashionable country club of Washington are a doc- tor and a minister, who delight in the exchange of repartee touching their re- spective professions As they met one day, the minister ob- served the w to read to old Cunningham,” adding (as he was aware that the old man was a patient of his friend, the “Is much worse? Ww physician replied zoin: doctor), he h the gravest of expressions, the “He needs your help more than mine.” Off his guard, the minister exclaimed anxiously: “Poor fellow! Is it as bad j he is suffering from insomnia.” —Lippincott’s. A Good Work Edith light-hearted and merry over everything. Nothing appealed to her seriously. So, one day, her mother was decided to invite a very scrious young parson to dinner, and he was placed next the light-hearted girl. Everything went well until she asked him: “You speak of everybody having a mission, What is yours?” “My mission,” said the parson, ‘is to save young men.” “Good,” replied the girl, “I'm glad to meet you. I wish you'd save one for Ladies’ Home Journal. “How do you like your new minis- ter’s wife?” “Not very well. She's just as s as the rest of us."—Detroit Free Press. ish Caront Bitters—Unequalted for flavoring sliced Fruits, leet, and Jelliex, Sample on receipt of 25 cents, i Oc 78 Broad St., N. V..Gen'l Distr A A N N B s T T comicbookseen