Life — February 24, 1916 — page 19: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This illustration satirizes palmistry—the pseudoscientific practice of reading character and fortune from hand lines. The caption's irony is the joke: a well-dressed gentleman sits with two women examining his palm, presumably to have his fortune told. The caption declares him "dangerous" based on his hand lines, yet nothing in his appearance suggests danger; he looks respectable and genteel. The satire mocks both palmistry itself (as fraudulent) and the gullibility of people—particularly women—who believed in it. By labeling an ordinary-looking man as "dangerous" based on superstitious hand-reading, the cartoonist ridicules the entire practice as unreliable and absurd. This reflects late 19th/early 20th-century skepticism toward occult practices and fortune-telling that were popular among the public.