Life — August 27, 1914 — page 26: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes banking corruption and embezzlement. A burglar has phoned a bank's receiving teller, identifying himself as "Mr. Perkins." Rather than refusing an after-hours deposit request, the teller casually agrees to accept five thousand dollars with no questions asked—suggesting the bank routinely handles suspicious transactions without proper oversight. The joke targets two things: the brazen criminality of someone literally robbing a bank, and the implicit corruption of bank employees who facilitate such theft through negligence or complicity. The teller's blasé attitude ("it doesn't matter about its being after hours") implies this is standard practice, not exceptional wrongdoing. This reflects early 20th-century anxieties about financial institutions' lack of accountability during an era before modern banking regulations and auditing standards.