Life, 1918-11-21 · page 22 of 34
Life — November 21, 1918 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This WWI-era *Life* magazine page contains satirical advice and war stories. **Top cartoon**: Shows a caricatured German soldier ("the Kaiser" reference) cursing the day he was born, after encountering anti-German propaganda or military resistance. The "To Hell with the Kaiser" sign reflects American wartime sentiment. **"To a Baby, Nowadays"**: Mock-serious advice to newborns about adapting to WWI homefront conditions—parents away at war work, learning to cook and fix plumbing independently. The satire targets how civilian life was disrupted by the war. **"A Couple of War Pictures"**: Excerpts from a letter by an American soldier in the British Black Watch regiment describing trench warfare. He describes falling into German anti-cavalry pit traps lined with barbed wire and stakes, resulting in injury. "Blighty" (British slang for home/Britain) refers to getting wounded enough for hospital discharge. **Bottom cartoon**: Soldiers working in a coal-yard, captioned "You're Wrong—This Is Not a Ball Game." Likely satirizes the grim, laborious nature of military work disguised as recreation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
on the cylinders to suit yourself during your melancholy moments. In case your father and mother should by any chance return to the house unexpectedly, do not greet them with a loud and resounding yell. On the contrary, appear calm. They are probably all in, any way, and the le you can do to help win the war is to keep them as composed as possible un- der the harrowing circumstances. TO HELL WITH THE i KAISER A Couple of War Pictures ERE are two paragraphs from a letter from a Yankee boy who joined the Black Watch (Scotch) in Canada, and, after many days and ad- ventures, brought up last August in a British hospital in France: HOW He MADE BLIGHTY The wily Hun, in the endeavor to pro- tect one of his strong points, constructed, or rather dug, a series of pits about three feet deep and ten feet wide, which he lined with sharp stakes and filled wit tangled barbed wire. The pits were covered with a camouflage of sticks and twigs, which rendered them practicall undistinguishable from the surroundin, underbrush. The main object was to confuse th cavalry, should they happen to at there; but no hussars, dragoons or lanc ers passed that way—whereas I did I did not become aware of the fact that my ankles were a bit lacerated until we had turned over what remained of Heinie’s strong point to the salvage corps sie CURSED RADDA RLNRBTBORE? At this juncture my attention was direct ed to my hose tops, which were suffused with a sample of New Rochelle’s bluest To a Baby, Nowadays blood. I thought I had been and I OTICE: Before arriving on the scene it is essential that you should remember that conditions are not quite normal, and you should, therefore, be prepared to accept them as they are, and not as you should like to have them. You should know how to cook, how to mend your own clothes and how to play in the back yard by yourself without any other companion than the next-door neigh- bor's cat. You should also develop some internal resources of your own, in order that you may not become too lone- some while the folks are away doing war work. It would be well for you to take a light course in plumbing, so that in case the pipes burst during the absence of the owner you will know how to fix them up without material damage to the premise It would be well for you to take a course in telephoning, as in all probability the bell will ring quite often, and you will be required to answer it. In order to amuse yourself properly, we suggest that you be born only in a house where YOU'RE WRONG there is a pretty good phonograph on hand. You can turn THIS IS NOT A BALL GAME—IT’S A COAL-YARD comicbooks.com