Life — January 27, 1916 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This illustration depicts a colonial-era hunting scene titled "In Ye Goode Olde English Days: Settling with Ye Tax-Gatherer." The image shows a figure being thrown or falling from a fence in a wooded clearing, apparently being violently ejected by colonists. The satire likely references 18th-century American colonial resistance to British taxation—specifically, the violent opposition to tax collectors sent from England. By framing this as "olde English days," the cartoonist uses historical irony to comment on how settlers resorted to physical force against tax enforcement, suggesting this was an established "tradition" of English resistance to unwanted taxation rather than purely American rebellion. The crude humor mocks both the tax-gatherer's misfortune and the colonists' rough methods of protest.