Life — September 4, 1919 — page 38: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a **product advertisement** for Rexall brand candies, not a political cartoon. The ad promotes "Rexall Diddies"—small candies sold at Rexall drugstores. The headline "They work naturally and form no habit" is a humorous double entendre. It simultaneously describes how the candies function (forming shapes naturally without requiring habit-forming substances) while parodying contemporary medical/pharmaceutical advertising language about habit-forming drugs. The visual shows an opened box of candies spilling out. The pricing structure ("8 for 10¢, 24 for 25¢, 60 for 50¢") suggests bulk purchasing incentives typical of early 20th-century retail. The joke relies on readers recognizing the stilted language of drug advertisements and applying it absurdly to penny candies, creating mild satire of advertising conventions themselves.