Life, 1912-02-01 · page 27 of 48
Life — February 1, 1912 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoons:** The top illustration, titled "The Turkey Trot and the Grizzly Bear," depicts couples performing these newly popular dances. The caption notes these dances were "barred from dance halls, but popular in society"—satirizing the contradiction between official disapproval and actual high-society adoption of these energetic, somewhat scandalous modern dances. **The Satire:** The page mocks social hypocrisy. The "Must Wear Something" section ridicules a New Jersey Country Club incident where guests were searched for a lost expensive ornament. Life sardonically argues that women must wear jewelry into social situations—even when the "dignity" of the gathered company is worth less than a union suit. This critiques the pretentiousness and moral emptiness of wealthy society. The closing quip contrasts ordinary men's financial failures (blamed on improvidence) with bankers' failures (blamed on currency issues)—exposing how the wealthy excuse their problems differently than the poor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
/ tz ve y XG \Y ) 2] a 1 ye i\ SAB WAL KER. THE TURKEY TROT AND THE GRIZZLY BEAR BARRED FROM DANCE ITALLS, BUT POPULAR IN SOCIETY consequent comment, the forgetten judgment that you secretly passed in fear and trembling on your own parents at the age of six! R. JEFFERY FARNOL, on the other hand, is so enamored of the comelier of the Twins that he always ends by offering her the other one’s head on a sil- ver salver. Which is flattering, but fatal. He did it in “The Broad Highway,” and he does it again in “The Money-Moon” (Dodd, Mead, $1.25). Do you remember how nice he was to both of them in the first half of “ The Broad Highway”? And how, after the heroine appeared, he grew shorter and snappier and more impatient with poor Reality, until at last he up with his axe and——? Well, “ The Money-Moon” is a sort of short modern ver- sion of the adventurous walking-tour theme, and Mr. Far- nol doesn’t use the axe till near the last. But he’s a regu- lar Berserker with an axe! What looks like a wedding at the end of the book is really a wake. 7 p Kerfoot. ROST: How’s yotr little daughter’s musical education progressing? Snow: Finely. At first she could play only classical stunts, but now she can do ragtime. Must Wear Something R. HEARST’S New York American propounds this society problem: In view of what happened at a Country Club ball in New Jersey the other day, the question arises: Should a lady wear or carry with her into a social gathering an article of jewelry of a higher value than the honor and dignity of the company? What happened, or was said to have happened, at a Country Club ball in New Jersey was that a female guest lost an expensive ornament, and the other guests were de- tained and searched to see whether they had ‘it. Now for the answer. A lady often has to wear or carry into a social gathering articles of more value than the dig- nity of the company. The value, for example, of the dig- nity of all those Jerseyites at that Country Club ball, who let themselves be searched, would surely be extravagantly appraised at the cost of one union suit. But a woman has got to wear something when she goes into company HEN the ordinary man gets into financial difficulties it is because he is improvident or a poor manager. When a banker gets into financial difficulties it is because the currency is not sufficiently clastic.