Life — November 7, 1912 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“LDPE * Wins the $100 Prize HE $100 prize for the best set of ten answers to the questions in Lire’s Examination Paper has been awarded to Mauve Bonner, 102 Witttams Street, Provivence, R. I. Here are the questions and the answers of the successful paper: 4. Should a suffragette marry If she can. 2. If Diogenes were searching America for an honest man, where would he be least likely to find him? In a female seminary. 3 Who invented the hobble skirt and why? Peter, Peter, pumpkin-cater, Had a wife and couldn't keep her, Put her in a hobble skirt And then he kept her quite inert. 4 A man of marriageable age has sufficient income to maintain a wife or an automobile, but not both, should he choose and why? An automobile, because it is cheaper to buy a tire than attire. HE above result was obtained by the usual process of elimination, and in the end there virtually unanimous decision by the judges that, taken in its entirety, this paper car- ried the best set of ten answers. In the last analysis the decision lay among fourteen papers. The other thirteen have been turned back, so that their replies will be considered in mak- ing the awards of the ten $25 prizes. Separately considered, the answers above were not by any means the best of those received. Other papers have single answers that are better than any of those shown here, but this was the best fuil set of re Now comes the greater task of de- termining which ten of the 38,550 nswers received in the contest are the best and entitled to receive the ten $25 prizes. With the utmost in- dustry it has been impossible to de- cide the answers and the names of the winners for this issue of Lr Therefore the announcement will ap- pear in next week's number, and it 5. What is the funniest thing in the world? Your employer's joke. 6. Give a good example of perpetual motion, Feminine fashions. 7. Suggest a better nance for Reno, Nev. The Great Divide. 8. Define common sense. The quality conspicuously lacking in those who differ with us in politics, religion or baseball 9. Why is it dangerous to marry a widow? Is it dangerous for a man to marry a woman? Is a widow most undeniably It is. woman? She is. Then is a man in danger when he marries a widov He is. 10. How wouid you spend a million dollars to do the least possible good? I'd buy some nerve for Teddy R., Some weight for William T., Which Then next for Woodrow Wilson I'd get a Ph. D. Some kerosene for worthy John; For Goodwin, a new And then I'd blow in all the rest wife, To buy good jokes for Lire. will be found that the replies coming from different persons will, taken to- gether, make a considerably cleverer set of answers than was to be found on any one paper. The shot fired at Theodore Roos velt impelled a number of competitors to write in asking that their answers to some of the questions be changed on account of their flippant reference to the victim of the assault. It has not been possible to make these changes, but no competitor will suf- fer on that account. The replies are judged only with regard to the con- ditions when the competition was an- nounced, and the result will not be af- fected by circumstances over which the competitors had no control. Despite the simplicity of the condi- tions of the contest and our repeated admonitions and entreaties to contest- ants to read them carefully before sending in their papers, a number of efforts have been thrown out because they did not comply with the rules. Some of them were not properly addressed, others did not have the name and address of the sender on cach sheet and other competitors cum- bered their manuscripts with matter foreign to the competition. Quite a number of replies reached us after the hour for closing, and therefore were not considered. Am- ple time was given for replies to reach us from any part of the United States, and, in fact, one set came from Paris, France, having been cabled over by the enthusiastic contestant. On the closing day over a hundred sets of replies came in by special de- livery mail. Just why so many con- testants wait until the last possible moment before sending in their entries is a mystery, and they must not blame us if they are disqualified. The check for the $100 dollar prize has already gone to the winner and next week’s Lire will contain the roll of honor of the ten contestants who are to receive twenty-five dollars each. comicbook $.coO