Life, 1914-12-03 · page 32 of 92
Life — December 3, 1914 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon - George III:** This depicts King George III with a "stiff neck," likely referencing the British monarch's famous mental illness (porphyria). The joke plays on his physical rigidity with a crude visual pun about his condition being well-known. **Middle Dialogue - Mrs. Frost & Mrs. Snow:** A domestic humor piece about a woman who employs a French waitress and deliberately speaks French at meals so the employee won't understand their conversation. The satire targets both class pretension (speaking French for sophistication) and the absurdity of this deceptive strategy. **"The Forestaller" Story:** Satirizes an anxious man who methodically equips himself at a gymnasium with extreme training equipment (200-pound dumbbells, cobblestones, pulleys). The punchline: he's not training for athletic glory but to physically prepare himself to carry his family's baggage on a winter vacation—mocking both masculinity expectations and the harried husband stereotype. **"Young Lady from Phoenix":** A light joke about pseudo-intellectual pretension—a girl reads about eugenics but misunderstands the field as personal self-improvement rather than hereditary science.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
George III.: Go EASY, BOYS. I'VE GOT A STIFF NECK RS. FROST: We have a French waitress and so we always speak French to each other at our meals. Mrs. SNow: Why so? Well, we don’t want her to know what we're talking about, BEFORE THEIR WIDESPREAD DISTRIBUTION The Forestaller “VOU provide everything, do you?” The rather slight, nervous-look- ing individual who had just entered the office of the public gymnasium, gazed rather anxiously at the head director of that famous institution. “T think so, sir. What course would you like?” “You have plenty of two-hundred- pound dumb-bells, I presume?” “ Certainly.” “T shall need to use them regularly. Any sandbags?” “Sandbags? I think so, but——” “Want them to rest on my feet, which must be prepared. Giant pul- leys?” “Oh, yes, we make a specialty of pulleys.” “That's good. I use the kind that fly up and wrench your arms from their sockets. Running-track?” “Finest in the world.” “You couldn't sprinkle a few cobble- stones on it for my special use, could you?” “We might. Excuse me—” The director leaned over confiden- tially. “How long will you be at it every day?” he asked. “Oh, as long as I can keep it up.” “Do you realize what this means to a man of your slight build? Two-hun- dred-pound dumb-bells, giant pulleys, sprinting over cobblestones—why, man, you'll kill yourself! What are you doing it for?” The stranger smiled. “T'm not doing it because I want to,” he replied; “but I’m going to take my family, consisting of a critical wife and four children, on a trip -this winter and I’ve got to get myself in training for carrying the baggage.” The Young Lady from Phoenix A PRECOCIOUS young lady from Phoenix Read some Heredito-Péycho-Asthenics. When asked if she knew What she was trying to do, Said, “ Why, I’m taking a course in Engenics!”