Life, 1920-03-11 · page 25 of 40
Life — March 11, 1920 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains multiple satirical pieces mocking Prohibition and labor movements: **Main Cartoon**: Mrs. Bilter jokingly asks her visiting aunt whether they should go to movies, play cards, or "pass the evening with our deceased relatives"—a dark joke about séances, suggesting the boredom of Prohibition-era entertainment options. **"Recipe" Section**: A darkly humorous fake recipe for homemade alcohol using poisonous substances (carbolic acid, cyanide, cocaine). It mocks people desperate enough to manufacture dangerous bootleg liquor during Prohibition. **"Little Girl" Joke**: Satirizes child labor reform by showing a girl misunderstanding a lecture—she thinks new laws will prevent her from doing household chores, missing the point about exploitative factory work. **"Modern Definition"**: Defines a "rube" as someone who's never left New York City—mockery of rural/unsophisticated Americans. **"Unionized Mother Goose"**: Parodies the nursery rhyme with a sheep demanding union wages, six-hour days, and overtime—satirizing aggressive labor organizing of the era. The page reflects 1920s anxieties about Prohibition, bootlegging, labor unrest, and urbanization.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Mrs. Bilter (to Aunt Jane, who is visiting her): SHALL WE GO TO THE MOVIES, PLAY CARDS OR PASS THE EVENING WITH OUR DECEASED RELATIVES ? Recipe ‘TO followers of Omar Khayyam and disciples of the late John Bar- leycorn, here is the latest recipe for nanufacturing your own stimulant: Take one quart of fresh carbolic cid, three ounces of cyanide of potas- ium, an ounce of prussic acid, three- juarters of a pound of cocaine, the heel of a well-worn rubber boot, a pine knot, preferably Georgia pine; add a dash of wood alcohol to give body to the whole, and dissolve in half a tub of lukewarm water. Boil steadily for two weeks, collect the vapor in a copper-covered sieve,and strain through asbestos. Let stand for three years, and bottle in a barn. Be careful and do not pull the corks from the bottles in a closed room, as the gas from the liquor is highly dangerous as well as deadly. Serve with cracked cast iron. ITTLE GIRL (leaving lecture on Child Labor, to which her mother has taken her to make her realize how fortunate she is): That means it will be against the law for me to wipe dishes, doesn’t it, mother? 465 Let the English Show Us DDRESSING Parliament at its opening on ‘February roth, King George said: Experience during the war showed the clearly injurious effects upon the national efficiency of the excessive consumption of strong drink, and the amelioration, in both health and ef ficiency, which followed appropriate measures of regulation and control. A bill will be presented to you providing for the development of a suitable system for the peace-time regulation of the sale and supply of alcoholic liquor. Observing the direful consequences to the United States of the exploita- tion of the people by liquor dealers and saloonkeepers, the English pro- pose to use remedies before a worse thing happens to them, to wit: Prohi- bition. They are well advised, and if they can contrive an effective system for the regulation and distribution of in- toxicants, it may come handy for us to borrow when we get back to the normal use of our faculties on this subject. The Modern Definition ILLIS: He is a rube? Gitis: An awful one. He's never been outside of New York City ia his life. oy ai UNIONIZED MOTHER GOOSE “Baa, baa, Black Sheep, have you any wool?” “Yes, sir; yes, sir, three bags full—but there'll be nothing doing unless you grant a six-hour day, time-and-a-half for overtime, recognition of the Ram's Horn Local, the usual increase, and anything else I may think of.” comicbooks.com