Life, 1912-10-17 · page 13 of 44
Life — October 17, 1912 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This 1897 *Life* magazine page satirizes noise pollution in urban life. The main article discusses Edward S. Morse's address on "suppressing unnecessary noise," citing locomotives and factory whistles as major offenders. Church bells and other urban sounds are criticized as growing nuisances. The top cartoon depicts a woman yielding to a man—illustrating gender dynamics of the era through the caption about "man's customary rights." The lower illustration shows what appears to be a burglar or suspicious figure among household items, captioning discrimination in collecting "monstrosities." The dialogue snippet "Another Secret" is a humor piece about keeping secrets in relationships. The satire reflects Progressive Era concerns about industrial modernization's quality-of-life impacts on city dwellers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“He Who Hath Ears” N an address on “The Suppression of Unnecessary Noise,” by Edward Morse, read under the auspices of the Ninth International Otological Congress in Boston, are a few state- ments which ought to be of interest to the noise-enduring American. Of all the sources of unnecessary noise the locomotive and factory whistle are by far the greatest. Carlyle, in one of his protests, says the steam whistle is the worst of all, “It is like the screech of ten thousand cats and every cat of them all as big as a cathedral.” The honorable Mr. Phelps in another connection said “the devil never found a truer note for his voice than the railway whistle.” If we could dispose of the whistle fiend as we do the drunkard, by fine and imprisonment, as was tually done in Toledo, the evil ened. ing church bell, which is supposed to call to prayer, but which often Icads to the opposite, is a growing nuisance in this coun- d should be checked. “pon'T sHooT, aGNes! COLLECTED ONLY THOS THIS IS HIDE FOR FEAR OF HURTING PEOPLE'S FEELING! A MONSTROSITIES WHICH BURGLAR OF DISCRIMINATION. HE HA WE DARE NOT GIVE AWAY NOR Pe wae HE 1S WILL > TO YIELD TO WOMAN Let us pause for a moment to consider the great city of Berlin, with its immense manufactorie tremendous traffic and all the in- tense activities of a busy people. Not a steam whistle is permitted within its borders; no loud huck- ster’s cries in the streets; a rattling wagon unknown ; even piano pla regulated, not being permitted be- fore a certain hour in the morning nor after a certain hour at night, and these conditions enforced even in that musical city, and why? Because the citizens choose to clect scholars and cultivated men to their municipal council. Roughly. speaking, we should say that Berlin, cacophonously considered, bears about the same relation to New York as heaven to hell. Another Secret HE: She told me to tell her that secret I told you not to tell her. He: The mean thing! I told her not to tell you I told her. Sue: I promised her I would not tell you she told me, so don’t tell her I told you. comicbooks.com