Life, 1916-12-14 · page 10 of 42
Life — December 14, 1916 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon**: A man shows three artworks to a bachelor client, saying "Sorry, Mr. Bachelors, but these three styles are all we have in matrimony." The joke satirizes marriage as having limited "styles" or options—suggesting matrimony itself is a constraining, repetitive institution rather than offering genuine choice. **Column "Things We Shrink from Knowing"**: A series of witty observations about social hypocrisy, including remarks about women's views of husbands, unexploded American shells ("Yanks"), efficiency, and Boston's high drunkenness arrests. The tone mocks polite society's unwillingness to acknowledge uncomfortable truths. **Bottom Cartoon**: Titled "Only Memories: The Bachelor's Christmas Eve," depicts a lonely bachelor observing a family Christmas through a window—nostalgic satire about bachelor isolation versus domestic contentment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“SORRY, MR. BACHELOR, BUT THESE THREE STYLES ARE ALL WE HAVE IN MATRIMONY” Things We Shrink from Knowing cat ) YOU 3 drink & too much. talk What most women think of their husbands. Sometimes American-made _ shells won't explode, so they call them “Yanks.” Efficiency tends to automatism, and careless, irresponsible spontancity is life in its most efficient form. Our bank balance. If you had to live your life over, you would do exactly as you are doing now. Bores Boston, the Hub of the Solar Sys- tem, has a thousand saloons and whirls giddily with sixty thousand an- nual arrests for drunkenness. U ALLY the man who runs off “A JOT everybody smokes at the wom with another man’s wife simply an’s club.” wants to borrow her. “No—not the men waiters.” ONLY MEMORIES THE BACHELOR’S CHRISTMAS EVE