Life, 1915-02-25 · page 5 of 44
Life — February 25, 1915 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page (309) mixes poetry, fashion, and advertising. The main cartoon depicts a slapstick scene of two exaggerated figures reacting with shock and alarm to a broken bottle on the floor. The image appears to be satirizing carelessness or domestic mishaps. The adjacent Carstairs Rye whiskey advertisement uses this chaos humorously—the broken bottle serves as dark comedy promoting their "non-refillable bottle" as superior to competitors' traditional bottles. The tagline suggests their product won't break like rivals', turning a disaster into a sales pitch. Below, "People and People" is a humorous essay mocking human pretension and social climbing, contrasting people's desire to be like others while denying they're "just" people. It's gentle social satire typical of Life's satirical approach to human nature and class anxiety.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Yet Gifts Should Prove Their Use” (An apology to the well-meaning friend who presented me for my birthday with an ornate and impos- sible “* Gift-book”.) TE me not, Friend, thou feel’st aggrieved To overhear me say The gift-book I from thee reccived I mean to give away. Though verse is aye a joy to me (The Muse myself I woo), Thy “Precious Gems of Poes I'll not give shelf-room to! This inconsistency is such As thou may’st not deplore ; Gift-books I could not hate so much Loved I not reading more. Sarah Redington. TRANGER: I think if you would be willing to take me around the country and exhibit me that I would make quite a hit. Manacer or CHautaugua Circte: I don't see anything extraordinary about ER: I'm the only E author now living who hasn't an unintelligible article explaining the causes of the great war. ANOTHER VOGUE PATTERN Italian silk, or re sttitable, The combination is cut in one piece with Id of the goods center-front center-ba shoulder underarm seams, The lower edge of the garment i the fold of the width Reading nines eds as Required for Combination in Medium Size: Is of 36-inch material Is of inc de of beater e The “Pitcher” That Went to the Well Too Often M. BOUILLON (to garcon who has dropped a bottle): ‘Camel! You have broken the Car- stairs bottle that has been the pride of the establishment for 20 years. Now they make all their bottles non-refillable. Ten thousand ruinations!" Carstairs 1788 Rye 1915 SCS Be sure you get Carstairs Rye ae z 7? in the non-refillable bottle— “a good bottle to keep good whiskey good.” It insures your getting this rare old whiskey—the result of long ageing combined with our more than 100 years experience as distillers. STEWART DISTILLING CO. P) Philadelphia New York Baltimore A, Meas People and People of the worst things about people is that they are ashamed of their estate So far as we know, this is true of no other biological specimen. Dogs have no objection to being dogs, cats are quite satisfied to be cats, and so on; but people constantly are trying to get away from the fact that they are people, and, therefore, that they are like everybody else. They are constantly seecking to be magnates and bosses and representatives and professors and bachelors of this and doctors of that and masters of the other. Sometimes we can find a fellow who will admit that he is a “real man”, but never one who will admit that he is just a man. Boys will he boys and girls will be girls, but people simply will not be people.