Life, 1914-03-05 · page 16 of 60
Life — March 5, 1914 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page mocks Anthony Comstock, the powerful anti-obscenity crusader who aggressively censored American publications. The limericks are deliberately written with asterisks and footnotes replacing "offensive" words—satirizing how Comstock's influence forced publishers to censor their content. Each limerick contains mild sexual or suggestive innuendo (a dog stealing underwear, a German's shrinking bathing suit, Puritan prudishness about nudity, French undergarments, and risqué musical shows). By blanking out the words, the satire exposes how Comstock's censorship made publications absurd and unreadable while ironically drawing *more* attention to what was supposedly dangerous. The footnote warning readers can find expurgated words at the bottom—a direct jab at Comstock's moralistic crusade. The accompanying "What's the Matter?" essay sardonically questions whether over-regulation and institutional restriction are driving young women to reckless behavior, suggesting censorship and control create the very problems authorities claim to prevent.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
(Warning! Morbidly curious indi- viduals wishing to know the words expurgated from this poem by the Anti-Shock Society will find them in the footnotes at the bottom of the page. The reader must take them entirely at his own risk.) 1 'HERE was a shy of Hocking At the door of her bedroom kept knocking. As she raised a wild shout, “TI can never come out, For Fido has stolen my * spinster MARCH WINDS Comstockized Limericks Il An adipose German named Tunken Wore a bathing suit frightfully shrunken. He said, “If mein curves Makes alarm mit your nerves— Vell, you ought to see ** IIL A Puritan maid loved an Ikey ‘Till she said to him, “Go! like 'ee— For how can you look At a Copley Print Book Showing portraits of *** 1 don’t MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN IN THE BEST REGULATED NUMBERS Iv There was a young lady named Barham Whose language was not harum- scarum, She remarked to her aunts, “Why, I'd sooner wear **** Than those horrid French garments called ***** Vv I Zon’t want to persecute Art, But I think if A. C. did his part He'd sail in and close Half the musical shows Where they serve you up ***¢¢* Wallace Irwin. What's the Matter ? OMEBODY’S daughter disappears about once a week just now. Usually she is found, but sometimes not. What is the matter? Are the girls’ minds so racked by prevalent sex questions that they lose their heads? Is society so ill run by the dominant males that the girls are not reasonably safe? Or is it that cur- rent feminism and institutionalism and free-everything have upset homes and put the mothers out of commission? Or is it a craving for advertisement? In some cases it is that. p sol. Yzzy der Duncan.” ‘upid and Psyche?” oUusers. jupes-culottes.” Shame @ la carte. comicbooks.com