Life, 1913-07-17 · page 15 of 44
Life — July 17, 1913 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains early 20th-century satirical humor typical of *Life* magazine's format. **Top Section ("The Eight Best Sellers"):** Shows illustrations of popular consumer goods and luxury items—perfume, jewelry, wine, cigars—satirizing materialism and consumer culture of the era. **"Mr. Naughty" Cartoon:** A domestic humor piece depicting a man on the "right road" (likely referring to moral or marital correctness), with the woman correcting his direction—standard gender-role comedy of the period. **"Philosopher's Note-Book":** Cynical aphorisms mocking pretentious philosophy and social conventions (e.g., jokes about hangovers, false friends, wealth's dubious benefits). **"Too Good-Natured":** A brief comic dialogue where "Uncle Jake" appears happy because he's been drinking alcohol. The humor relies on the period's common joke equating alcohol with artificial cheerfulness—a reference pre-dating Prohibition's strictness but reflecting ongoing temperance debates.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Mr. Nagsby: RIGHT ROAD. THE EIGHT BEST SELLERS EXCUSE ME, MY DEAR, YOU are ON THE From a Philosopher's Note-Book OU can drive a Tramp to water but you cannot make him drink. You never know just what you can’t do until you try. Two heads are worse than one in the cold gray dawn of the morning after. An open enemy is better than a false friend, but a closed enemy is better than either. The reason why Truth seems .stranger than Fiction is because with so many people it is less frequent. To be born with a silver spoon in your mouth is a subtle indication that your parents had rather careless table manners. J. K. B. Too Good-Natured OBBIE: Oh, mamma! Have you seen Uncle Jake? He looks awful happy. Bonste’s Motner (anxiously): What's the matter with him? “T think he has been taking some of that good-natured alcohol.” comicbooks.com