Life, 1915-03-04 · page 32 of 48
Life — March 4, 1915 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon - "Hints to Husbands":** Depicts a wife enthusiastically dancing at a social gathering while her husband appears frustrated. The joke critiques women's newfound social independence—wives attending public dances and staying out late, defying husbands' expectations for domestic schedules. **Middle Article - "Those Janus-like Middlemen":** Satirizes commodity traders and wholesalers for their hypocrisy. Using the two-faced Roman god Janus as metaphor, the piece mocks middlemen who justify *low* prices when buying (citing war costs, overproduction) and *high* prices when selling (citing identical reasons). It's a critique of economic dishonesty and profiteering. **Bottom Cartoon - "Rural Constable":** Contrasts patriotic knitting—women publicly knitting socks for soldiers fighting ("the belligerents")—with neglecting domestic duties like darning their own husbands' socks. It satirizes performative patriotism and women's selective priorities. **Context:** These appear WWI-era, reflecting tensions over women's changing social roles, wartime economics, and market manipulation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ny ante RoE aE HINTS TO HUSBANDS THE ONLY WAY TO GET A DANCF-MAD WIFE TO CO HOME AT A REASONABLE HOUR Those Janus-like Middlemen HIE middleman is the direct lineal descendant of the great god Janus. His principles de- pend entirely upon which way he is looking when they are enunciated. If he is buying goods from the producer, then prices have gone down because of the increased cost of doing business, the cur- tailment of consumption on account of the war, over-production on account of the excellent grow- ing weather, hesitation on account of an uneasy feeling in Wall Street, and so on, limited only by the inventiveness of the middleman’s genius. But if, on the other hand, he is selling goods to the consumer, prices have gone up because of the increased cost of doing business, the curtailment of demand on account of the war, under-prcduction on account of the floods in Beluchistan, large withdrawals from the market for storage, inordinate and greedy demands of the producer, hesitation on account of an uneasy feeling in Wall Strect, and so on, the field for imaginative flights being equally large in each case. half a you a ambit strony an in compl new | happit Becon being e fd perfec can s living inerea venier The S cessfu judge: ness. numb this s Your memo it cant your | to be. HE women who go around in public knitting socks for the belligerents never think of darning their hus- bands’ socks at home. Rural Constable; w-H-M! TRYIN’ TO HIDE FRUM ME, BE YE? comichooks.cem