Life, 1920-10-21 · page 15 of 44
Life — October 21, 1920 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The cartoon depicts a butcher shop scene where a customer questions the butcher about his long absence, noting he's "blushed" at the prices—a visual pun on the butcher's red face and inflated meat costs. The two accompanying text pieces satirize British social hierarchy. "Impossibility" mocks the rigid class system through a mother's marriage requirements for her daughter—the suitor must be wealthy, well-born, and from an acceptable family, yet the mother rejects every candidate as inadequate. "Precedence" critiques the absurd protocol governing who meets whom in English society, where strict rank determines social interaction. Both pieces humorously expose how Britain's class obsession creates ridiculous, contradictory standards that prevent normal social functioning.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Customer Impossibility M* mother says that | must marry Only for love. Yet she says that Dick is too fast, Tom is 100 poor, And Jerry's family is not good enough. She wants me to marry a millionaire saint Who must be in heaven, Because I can’t find him. Precedence r is a pity that there is no order ot precedence established in this country, so that when we ht rt, al t anybody that we cannot po we would—under these 1 CAN SER THAT YOU HAVEN'T BEEN LONG IN THIS BUSINESS THE PRICK YOU BLUSHED than ours as things go (and still on the as we see by the Hearst papers), things better. The King comes first, as a matter of Next the Prince of Wales, then the younger sons of the the course, overcign, gr7 sons of sovereign, sover- is said about but doubt- any emergency, a place would be in the line. lors for them somewhere the Am made Next come and the mentioned ger parently anything is good er But his plight is 4 younger sons of WHEN YOU MENTION peers, who are so far back in the line that only by constant traveling day and night and f ed marches can they arrive even where the Prime Minister once was. At any dinner party they could not hope to get anything to cat much before the third or fourth ¢ ed (this ei democracy) t It is pre some to such a th The The Pe The Watki The Dome W. The Subway Gu The Pre The President of t Hearst. comicbooks.com