Life, 1919-12-18 · page 11 of 56
Life — December 18, 1919 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces: **Left side:** "The Reformer's Progress and End" is a satirical narrative poem mocking a self-righteous crusader. The subject attempts moral reform at age five (correcting grammar), escalates through various causes (censoring swearing, school bullying, street gambling), and peaks at thirty-five by launching an anti-tobacco campaign. The satire culminates when he loses his job—suggesting his self-righteousness and meddling isolate him socially. The poem critiques sanctimonious reformers as hypocritical busybodies whose zeal for controlling others' behavior backfires. **Right side:** A Velvet tobacco advertisement disguised as a sentimental Christmas poem ("The Grown-Up Boys"), featuring a woman and children. Below, copy promotes Velvet pipe tobacco as the ideal gift for pipe smokers. **Bottom left:** A Piso's cough remedy advertisement. The page juxtaposes anti-reform satire with commercial advertisements celebrating indulgence (tobacco, patent medicines).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Reformer’s Progress and End (As Hogarth Might Have Scen It) A’ five years of age he tried to re- form his nurse’s grammar. She left the next day. Atnine he rebuked father for swear- ing when he mashed his finger. He got a spanking on the “ spot.” At twelve he held up to sister the evils of using cosmetics. She “laid it on” with a slipper. At fifteen he denounced the school bully for “conduct unbecoming a gen- tleman.” He went home with two black eyes and one bloody nose. At cighteen he told a band of street loafers they ought to be ashamed of wasting their precious time. They promptly threw him into the river. At twenty-two he characterized gum- chewing as “disgraceful” to the pretty typewriter in the office, At the end of the week he lost his job. At twenty-five he started a Young People’s. Reform Society. A few nights later a masked band of “un- knowns” tarred and feathered him, At thirty he set out to reform the politics of his city. At the next elec- tion the old gang was returned by an overwhelming majority. At thirty-five he initiated a crusade against tobacco and dancing. This was getting entirely too near home, so a good-looking society girl promptly married him, and the last heard of him he was tangoing every afternoon and evening and smoking five packages of cigarettes daily. Q. E. D As beneficial as a hot water bottle Because Piso’s is a real help—day or night, in preventing winter’s most frequent ills, It allays coughs and hoarseness and soothes irri- tated “tickly’” throats. Keep it always i] in the medicine cabinet. It may save a weary trip to the drug store at night. 30¢ at your druggist’s, Contains no opiate’ Good for young and old or Coughs & Colds 1005 THE GROWN-UP BOYS Good ladies, little folks, an’ girls Let's you an’ me enjoy . The fun of playin’ Sandy Claus To some dear grown-up boy. Let's send a brimmin’ pound of love— Age-mellowed, friendly, ripe— To every grown-up boy who likes His easy chair and pipe. Like his, old Velvet’s heart grows young With each succeedin’ year, That fills it fuller an’ more full Of Friendliness an’ cheer. Let this good pound of Velvet prove reat That loved ones don’t forget THE SMOOTHE? The husbands that are still their beaus— TOBAC CO. And sons they still can pet. VELVET in hand- some full-pound- Copyright, 1989 Liggett & Byers Tolaces Lets make this an old time Christmas What gift so typifies the merry spirit of the old time Christmastide as a pound of Velvet—the choicest pipe tobacco that hospitable old Kentucky ever grew? What gift is so acceptable to the smoker as a whole pound of this hearty old tobacco—fragrant as only real tobacco can be—smooth, mellow and mild from long ageing in the wood? If he is a true devotee of the pipe there is no gift that will better convey to him the expression of your affection or regard than a pound of good old Velvet. Write to Velvet Joe, 4241 Folsom Avense, St. Louis, Me., for his 1920 . Almanac. He will send it FREE, KiggcttenityreaSitaces comicbooks.com