Life, 1920-04-01 · page 39 of 60
Life — April 1, 1920 — page 39: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate humorous anecdotes illustrated with sketches, typical of Life magazine's satirical format. **"The Wandering Minstrel"** (top): A clergyman attempts to baptize a child while the confused father holds the infant incorrectly oriented toward the baptismal font. The joke satirizes rural incompetence and miscommunication—the father cannot understand simple directions, and requires a bystander to literally shout instructions across the church. **"An Old Wender Satisfied"** (middle): A railroad passenger complains that timetables are useless. An agent responds that without the numbers, travelers would have no way to calculate how late trains actually run—implying chronic unreliability is accepted as normal. The satire mocks both railroad inefficiency and passenger resignation to poor service. **Bottom section**: References pearls and innocent expressions (text partially unclear from OCR), likely another brief joke about social pretension or hypocrisy. All three pieces employ situational humor targeting institutional incompetence and human foolishness rather than specific political targets.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Directions A NEW YORK divine had océasior > h I fish in Ma christening in a sm; village When the time for baptism arrived, the clergyr that the rrassed father holding child so that it legs pointed toward the font “Turn her this way,” he pered. But the father was too di concerted to hear or understa “Turn her feet around,” the ister whispered Was no response Md se man in the back of the church came to the rescue. Putting his we ten hand to his mouth, across the room: “Head her into the An Old Wender Satisfied V HAT “good,” asked the angry wo passen- ger, “are the figures set dc in these railway time-tables “Why,” patiently ex the genial agent, “if it wer for them figures we'd have no iy of findin’ out how late the trains 1s.” l' it keeps on, ¢ ffalo will soon “you MUST kEMES be as extinct as the American COWN—AND PERHAPS YC school-teacher. A STRING OF F MOST INNOCENT EXPRES comicbooks.com