Life, 1915-07-29 · page 29 of 40
Life — July 29, 1915 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical cartoon from *Life* magazine illustrates a darkly comedic military scene. The caption "Wake up, Sam!" suggests a soldier (Private Smith) has dozed off during wartime. The narrative describes a flask of liquor ("spiritus frumenti"—Latin for alcoholic spirits) dropping from Smith's hand and shattering at precisely 3:16.6, the same moment a bullet strikes its target, killing someone (likely an enemy soldier). The joke satirizes soldier priorities: rather than concern about the fatal shot, Smith's immediate reaction is frustration about losing his drink for the remainder of the day. This mocks both military drinking culture and the apparent indifference soldiers develop toward combat deaths—treating a lost alcohol supply as more significant than a casualty. The classical allegorical figures in the illustration (appearing to represent Mercury or similar) add ironic contrast to the gritty military reality described below.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
its completion in the factory two years in the past. At 3:16.6 the flask dropped from private Smith’s hand. It was completely shattered, and “WAKE up, SAM!” there was nothing left of the spiri- tus frumenti but the ghost of an odor, And it was precisely at that moment that the bullet fulfilled its mission, “Hell!” said private Smith, and, turning to private Jones, he cried: “Now what'll we do for a drink the rest of the day? Charles Earl Gaymon, comicbooks.com