Life, 1915-11-11 · page 8 of 44
Life — November 11, 1915 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a satirical wishlist of everyday observations the author desires. The left cartoon shows a child ignoring a "NO SWIMMING" sign at a pond, with the caption "The Duck: 'ISN'T BELIEVE THAT SIGN, SONNY. I'VE BEEN IN ALL DAY AND IT'S FINE.'" This mocks children's tendency to disregard safety warnings and animals' apparent indifference to rules. The right illustration depicts "The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe"—a nursery rhyme character with so many children she sends them to factory labor while she stays in bed. This satirizes both the nursery rhyme's dark implications and perhaps contemporary child labor practices or family management struggles. The upper text lists humorous desires: witnessing architects carrying trunks, subway guards being gentle, rain-coat manufacturers testing products—ordinary life moments presented as remarkable or worthy of witnessing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘LYE E * Sights | Yearn to See LONG to sce two architects carrying a 300-pound trunk up a pretty winding staircase of their own | design, a subway guard captured and squashed by a side-door. gently the manuiacturer of a certain rain-coat, in the clutches of an energetic shower, wrapped up in the coat, but without an umbrella, the white-coated gentleman in a well- known cafe drinking a certain “my latest thing in cocktails.” the maker of patent swings for children being compelled to put one together in 12 hours, guided only by the directions issued by his concern, my barber shaving himself with “the finest razor I ever owned. the inventor of a cigar-lighter I have played with, stranded on a chilly waste with a pile of wood and his machiae, but no matches, I it to : a soft-voiced telephone girl being “cut off” in the middle of an absorbing conversa- tion with her “gentleman friend.” the designer of an automobile I have slept in, getting a wrench on a certain nut in the gear-shifting mechanism. the originator of the sharp wire and card- hoard price tag for shirts, ete, “finding” one, when snarled up in some formal even- ing party, a U.S. Weather Forecaster with his wife and that new dress at a clambake on an open beach during one of his “fair and warmer” the author of “How to Make Money From Mushrooms” doing it. the creator of the modern time-table on a Monday morning, viewing a water-tank and “*Fridays only. +Stops on signal. *Connects with Train 4 (see page 13)”. the genius, who thought out a certain typewriter, putting a new ribbon in it, when dressed for his daughter’s wedding. HERE was an old woman who lived in a shoe, She's so many children she'd nothing to do. They went to the factory to labor for bread While she spent the time very snugly in bed. The Duck: pox't peeve THAT SONNY. BEEN IN ALL DAY AND 11'S FINE Stn, comicbooks.com