Life, 1916-10-19 · page 10 of 42
Life — October 19, 1916 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertisements disguised as humorous cartoons**, a satirical format Life magazine used to mock absurd product claims and social pretensions. The three fake ads mock: 1. **Buzzsaw Collars** — suggests wearing them causes perpetual cursing, satirizing uncomfortable men's fashion 2. **Avalanche Garters** — jokes that they won't stay up, mocking unreliable men's accessories 3. **Tootsie Whiscuits** — absurdly claims you must eat them or face "chipped bed-slats," nonsensically linking food to furniture damage The lower ad mocks **Early Christian Union Suits** (long underwear), playing on religious virtue-signaling in consumer products. The accompanying article critiques New York vice conditions and moral reform efforts, suggesting authorities should systematically eliminate vice rather than piecemeal enforcement. The satire targets both actual social problems and the exaggerated claims of commercial products exploiting consumer anxieties.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE Advertisements You Have Never Seen \ear One Once And Youll Curse Them Always Virtue and Vice in New York NCE again the wheel of time brings us around to the place where the authorities are trying to dis- cover how much vice there is in New York, accompanied, of course, by ef- forts to decrease its quantity and im- prove its quality. The result’ may safely be prognosticated as exactly the same as always in the past. The ac- tivities of some few of the vicious will be curbed somewhat, but the vice in unlimited magnitude will go on flour- ishing with all the vigor of the pro- verbial green bay tree. Wherefore we are constrained to suggest a new method of getting at vice conditions in our fair metropolis. ial Oh Yes Indeed, | Alea Wear AVALANCHE GARTERS. “They CaitSlayU Why wouldn't it be a good notion to come at the vice statistics by the proc- ess of first seeking out and eliminat- ing all the virtues? The amount of attention received by virtue in public investigations is a pitiful proportion of what it must deserve, for there must TOOTSIE ‘WHISCUITS, C hipped Bed-slafs g AT THE BETTER SORT OF HARDWARE STORE. Sremrmrerameernmocumnune erent sateen be a vast aggregate of it hidden in out- of-the-way places. Now, if all this virtue were gathered together and placed to one side, then everything left would be vice, which we could examine at our leisure and act accordingly. E. 0. J. A Toast ‘0 OUR MOTHERS: May their eyes never be opened to and their hearts never closed to our weaknesses! HOPE you will come out ahead, Bobbie. What are you being exam- ined at this time of the schol year for?” “For adenoids.”