Life, 1919-04-17 · page 18 of 46
Life — April 17, 1919 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This story satirizes the absurdity of Prohibition (the ban on alcohol sales). Two men celebrate a birth by going on an elaborate food and drink spree. They consume eighteen malted milks, sundaes, and peppermints—all legal substitutes—while one character boasts of secretly obtaining a "cocktail" (illegal alcohol) containing "whipped cream and cochineal." The joke targets how Prohibition created ridiculous workarounds: people consumed enormous quantities of legal sweets as a cover for, or substitute for, banned alcohol. The reference to a "wet Bryan Martini" likely alludes to William Jennings Bryan, a prominent dry-law advocate—the irony being that even his name gets attached to a drink. The cartoon's setup shows figures in what appears to be a public space, possibly a speakeasy or establishment operating under Prohibition. The satire mocks both the law's ineffectiveness and the public's creative defiance of it.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Season EH ATLL “JACK, THAT AISLE DOESN'T SEEM LONG Now, DOES 17?” A Mad Revel T was the dawn of a new, dry day. The stork had also come to the house of one Billby, and he was correspond- He wanted to celebrate, He must celebrate is veins that means a ingly jubilant he started out with tha glad time in the old town to-night. The first man he met * Hello, Horner Nothing's too good!” was Horner. Jman! Yes, it’s a boy- seven pounds! Come on! They stepped into a corner dr aly abode “Give me fifty cents’ worth of chewing gum,” said Billby “Here! Take a couple of rounds That was the beg f the end At nine-fifteen o'clock that night Horner led Billhy to e latter's piazza. Old fellow,” he chortled | feel like a four-time winner: I've had eighteen malted milks, ten nut “wwe certainly have had one m of a time monarch of all I survey sundaes and two pounds of peppermints.” “Yes,” said Billby, as he leaned up against the side of the piazza while a trained nurse was making preparations to roll him into the house. “But [ had all that and more. You didn’t have what Thad.” “What did you have that [ didn't hav “Thad a cocktail. Ha! Ha! Whoop! “A cocktail! “Why got the snowball soufilés, I slipped around the corner an Whoop!” Where did you get it?” when you were talking to that clerk where we had a wet Bryan Martini “What is in it?” “Whipped cream and cochineal. Whoop!” THAT COVERN MENT-OPEKATED PHONE