Life, 1919-06-12 · page 15 of 46
Life — June 12, 1919 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes John Chaloner, a wealthy eccentric who sued the *Evening Post* for libel after they published an editorial calling him insane. The text describes how Chaloner's own testimony backfired—his verbose, rambling account to the jury essentially proved the newspaper's point rather than refuting it. The main illustration shows a wedding scene where a blonde woman's hair has fallen onto a man's shoulder, captioned "The Blondes Hair." This appears unrelated to the Chaloner story, suggesting it's a separate satirical cartoon about social propriety or marital mishaps. The smaller cartoon at bottom left ("One Reason Why France Was Invincible") depicts a soldier with bundled hay, likely a joke about military logistics or French military culture.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Chaloner’s Day in Court T {ERE are signs that private citi- ens, otherwise orderly, are to be allowed a larger latitude of view on some subjects, without prejudice to right to go loose in the streets w checks on money to their » the bank. The suit of the table John Chaloner, born Chan- nst the Evening Post for libel, y interesting. So far as the / was concerned, it was a mere mis- tune. A man with whom Chaloner struggling was killed by the dis- © of a revolver in Chaloner’s }, and an editorial paragrapher of { observed, in his zeal for duty, the latest common assassin had the rare foresight to have himself de- clared insane before he shot his man.” Chaloner felt aggrieved at that, and t a libel suit against the Post 000, and came to New York vhiere he has been declared insane) under protection of the Federal courts, y in the suit. His lawyers un- rtook to prove that he neither killed his man" nor is insane, and since he won his suit (damages being uced to $17,300) his lawyers must veld to have made fairly good in ir undertaking. Jt was Chaloner's testimony as a wit- for himself that did the business. alked voluminously to the jury, nd interested them all the way. In- decd he turned himself loose on them; THE BLONDE'S HAIR RIGHT IN THE MIDST OF THE CEREMONY THE BRIDE FINDS A BLOND HAIR ON HIS SHOULDER ONE REASON WHY FRANCE WAS IN- VINCIBLE much looser, it appeared, than his law- yers would have allowed if they had heen able to control him. He took the jury into his confidence and told the story of his life, including his sad experience with insanity experts, his thre r sojourn in Bloomingdale asylum, his escape, his further adven- tures in Virginia, where the courts ad- judged him sane, and his remarkable and fruitful proceedings with his sub- conscious mind. As to this latter endowment he testi- fied that he had a subconscious mind, and had got it under control so that he could make it work for him. By use of it, he said, he had produced a number of books, which he showed to the jury, though his conscious mind, he told them, had never written any- comicbooks.com