Life, 1913-12-11 · page 32 of 40
Life — December 11, 1913 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines editorial satire with advertisements and literary promotion, circa early 1900s. **"No Laughter" Section:** Life satirizes a legal case about a man who cannot laugh due to a broken neck (a real verdict of $25,000). The joke advises him to read the Congressional Record, attend comic operas, or suffrage meetings—implying these are so tedious or absurd they won't make him laugh. The reference to "suffrage meetings" reflects anti-women's-suffrage sentiment common in Life at this era. **Main Content:** Advertisements for Rex Beach's novel "The Auction Block" (illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson, famous for "Gibson Girl" drawings) and Cheney silk cravats. **"Knew Him Well" Story:** A courtroom joke where a witness describes a dead man in flattering detail. When pressed, he admits he never met the man—he only knows him through having "married his widow." The humor relies on the absurdity of detailed knowledge through marriage alone.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
(LIFE™ No Laughter ECENTLY the papers printed an account of a man who is doomed never to laugh, R and who received a verdict of twenty-five thousand dollars from a jury. It is stated that he may be able to live for years provided he is careful never to laugh. If he does this, his neck, which was broken at the second cervical vertebra, would cause him to break his spinal cord and thus kill him. Permit us to give this gentleman some advice: Spend your time reading the Congressional Record or going to comic operas. Attend a few suffrage meetings occa- sionally. In this way you will be able to exist in certainty until the Humorous Number of Lire comes out. After that you will be safe. | 4 A EX BEACH, virile and forceful, writes a story that throbs with the teaming activity of our great metropolis. When he tells you of New York life, he shows you the people who actually walk Broadway. That is why his latest novel, ‘* The Auction Block ** is so intense, so realistic. That is why the next five years of Rex Beach's work has been contracted for by Cosmopolitan. ‘ Charles Dana Gibson whose dashing pen has so well caught the charm of the youthful heroine, is drawing the illustrations, Lorelei, dainty, piquant, and unspoiled, seeking recognition on the stage of a greedy city. If she were your own daughter, you would follow her fortune no closer than you will when you read this story. Get it in January otis Novel In the next eight months of Cos- mopolitan for a dollar bill and portunity, Mail the $16. CHENEY || : SILK a CRAVATS m Most appropriate for Christmas giving are these Cheney holiday sets. th There are combination boxes of eithertubularsorflowing-end four-in- i. hands with either handkerchiefs or al socks, There are individual boxes of i cravats, handkerchiefs, scarfs, mufflers oy and English squares. At all dealers’. be rb CHENEY BROTHERS ps Silk, Manufacturers de 4ih Avenue and 18th Street, New York of a ha > 80 Knew Him Well a It was a contested will case, and one of te the witnesses, in the course of giving his th evidence, described the testator minutely. to “Now, sir,” said the counsel for the an defence, “I suppose we may take it, from the flattering description you have given of the testator, his good points, and his personal appearance generally, that you were intimately acquainted with him?” “Him!” exclaimed the witness, “He was no acquaintance of mine!" “Indeed! Well, then, you must have observed him very carefully whenever you saw him?” pursued counsel. “T never saw him in my li reply. This prevarication, as counsel thought it, was too much, and he said : “Now, now, don’t trifle with the court, , | please! How, I ask you, could you, in the name of goodness, describe him so minutely if you never saw him or never knew him?" “Well,” replied the witness, and the smile which overspread his features ex- FA tended to the faces of those see, I married his widow.’ comicbooks.com