Life, 1913-08-28 · page 16 of 40
Life — August 28, 1913 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces from an early 1900s American humor magazine: **"A Fish Story"** (main narrative): A mock-operatic tale mocking romantic melodrama. A codfish vows never to marry but is seduced by a starfish performer in the "Neptune Operatic Company." After they marry, his finances collapse (the "Codfish Bank" fails), and the fickle starfish abandons him. The satire targets both romantic excess and financial instability of the era. **"Hard Job"** (top dialogue): A dramatic critic complains about the demanding task of reviewing an entire 1913-1914 theatrical season for a June 1914 publication deadline—satirizing both the pressure of arts criticism and publication schedules. **"The Same Old Way"** (bottom): A manufacturer's wife tells her servant Dinah that voting the "correct way" might result in wage increases—satirizing paternalistic workplace manipulation and the emerging women's suffrage debate, suggesting employers coerced workers' votes. All employ exaggerated Victorian sentimentality and social pretension as targets for ridicule.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Sib Juss. Was a sure financial goncr, found she couldn't stand the strain. So the wife of his affections, ere the summer days yrew dark, Flitted (leaving no directions) with a fascinating Shark! e 8 © 8 28 2 Now upon a counter, waiting for some customer's de- mand— Past all loving, past all hating, labelled as the “Ocean Brand "— And beyond all fishly striving in his airless, tinned retreat— Caring not a continental, that at last he’s good to eat— Stands (with sundry other odd fish—never more the deep to roam) One poor dessicated codfish, with a desecrated l:ome! Hard Job RIEND: You certainly have a snap. Dramatic Critic: Snap? Do you know what I'm trying to do now? Frienp: What? - Dramatic Critic: Write a review of the the- atrical season of 1913-1914 for the June, 1914, number that comes out the first of next month, Cupid: co IT, MIKE, I'LL HOLD YouR HAT. A Fish Story OWN beneath the restive billows, tossing wildly over- head, Where the mermaids Jay their pillows, making up the ocean-bed, There resided once a codfish of unquestioned pedigree; He was deemed a rather edd fish in Marine Society. But his most eccentric feature was a resolution grim That no sweet aquatic creature should succeed in wedding him! But, alas for vows emphatic! His were tumbled upside down, When the Neptune Operatic Company arrived in town; Unawares Dan Cupid picked him, and before a week had passed, He succumbed, an easy victim, to the Starfish of the cast! She invaded all his slumbers (though he hardly slept at all) And they swam eleven numbers at the Monthly Codfish Ball! Married life was all plain sailing till his patrimony sank AD waEse Ra In a most disastrous failing of the local Codfish Bank, THE SAME OLD WAY Then the fickle Prima Donna, seeing that her luckless Manufacturer's Wife: DINAH, IF YOU CAST YOUR BALLOT swain THE WAY I DESIRE PERHAPS YOUR WAGES WILL BE RAISED. comicbooks.com