Life, 1920-03-18 · page 14 of 54
Life — March 18, 1920 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces targeting early 20th-century social pretension: **Top cartoon**: A woman is told "Have a cigarette, Ethel. You're attracting an awful lot of attention by not smoking"—mocking the social pressure to conform to fashionable behaviors, particularly women smoking in public (then considered scandalous). **Left column** ("Is the Earth Still Inhabited?"): Satirizes urban overcrowding and the disappearance of privacy, suggesting cities have become so densely populated that solitude and traditional domestic life are extinct. **Right column** ("Men One Likes to Meet"): A humorous catalog of annoying social types—forgettable acquaintances, nervous bores, and repetitive pests—the kinds of people one cannot avoid in society. The illustrations feature exaggerated character types typical of period comic satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“ HAVE A CIGARETTE, ETHEL. YOU'RE ATTRACTING AN AWFUL LOT OF ATTENTION BY NOT SMOKING” Is the Earth Still Inhabited > HILE scientists are wrangling over the question as to whether Mars or Venus is signaling us, it would be well to start an inquiry into whether the carth is inhabited. Heat is gradually disappearing from the houses where men and women used to live. Strange messages come over the ‘phones from “numbers” we never heard of. Janitors and landlords can no longer be found; they have in some strange manner dis- appeared from the earth The cafés are empty, forsaken cities The necessaries of life can no longer be sold, because there is nobody left with suf- ficient money to buy them. It is true that strange masses con- tinue to move on the stre but they seem to have no place to go, especially at night. There is little proof that the earth is any longer inhabited by human beings. OWARD: Why did Miss Sicka- bed send for the doctor? Cnristian Scientist: Oh, she has Men One Likes to Meet THe immaculate person who, while he converses with you, gazes intently at some spot upon you which he evidently considers an appalling blemish. The huge creature who slaps you resoundingly on the back at the church social and loudly in- quires how your private stock is holding out. Mr. So-and-So and Let-Me-See, who is eternally forgetting names and the humorous parts of stories. The nervous little chap with the cherubim countenance who fairly oozes soda-water profanity. The confidential friend who intro duces you to his troubles for the twen- tieth time. The absent-minded pest who has been telling you the same chestnut for years and expects you to laugh heartily every time it is repeated. Modern AMMA: Somebody has taken my silk stockings out of my bureau drawer. a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder and “All, all are gone—the old Bossier: I saw grandma come out of other imaginary ills. familiar faces!" here a minute ago.