Life, 1920-12-23 · page 27 of 44
Life — December 23, 1920 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three Christmas-themed satirical pieces typical of early 20th-century Life magazine humor: **"Local Gossip"**: A tall tale about a con man who sells city property at inflated rents, then tricks a gullible stranger into buying land—which turns out to be the State Penitentiary. The joke plays on rural/urban stereotypes and warns against get-rich-quick schemes. **"A Christmas Sonnet"**: Mock-serious poetry about struggling with temptation from Christmas pudding, treating the dessert as an irresistible moral test. The humor lies in treating food with overwrought dramatic language. **The cartoons** depict domestic absurdities: a man finally finding practical use for useless ear-muffs his wife knitted, and an old man's "merry Christmas" imagined as sitting alone by a fireplace. The overall tone is gentle satire of American life, with recurring themes of marital comedy, consumer folly, and rural simplicity versus urban cunning—characteristic of Life's early satirical voice.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IF SANTA CLAUS HAD EVER COME TO EARLY Né A Christmas Sonnet H, Christmas Pudding—brown—sed With sprays of scarlet holly for thy cres The longings thou dost raise within my breast -eap—as the brandied flames which thee surr< LOCAL GOSSIP Assail my nostrils and my thoughts confound Tt E wuz a feller in town t’ other day, stranger I would I were a Christian Scientist, round these parts, and he sartinly wuz smarter’n salt That I might tuck thee well beneath 1 ona sore finger. He told Billy Pipp how he had owned a place down in the city and raised the rents, then sold out and bought another and raised the rents, and he wuz a-blowin’ an’ spoutin’ like a porpoise. “Gosh!” sez Bill. “ They need a wideawake, hustlin’ = ’ young feller like you ‘rouad here” sex he, * Why, Thou mak’st me feel in full the pangs of hell! thar’s a place down the road a piece whar a lot o’ men I dare not face thy tempting—I must flee. works an’ they lives close handy by, an’ they're payin’ So, Christmas Pudding—Greetings and farewell. M1’. the same rent as they done afore the war.” “Indeed,” sez the feller. “I might look the place over and buy it.” “Yes, sir,” sez Bill; “that’s jest the place for a land lord sech as you be.” The feller ‘lowed he'd walk down the road and mebbe take an option on the place, and Bill told him whicht way to go. He didn't know Bill hed directed him to the State Penitentiary. d then deny thee; that is, if 1 found That thou and I were like to disagree, But how thou'lt act I never can foretell- Sometimes thou art so very real to me PAUL GOOLD MR. PECK AT LAST FINDS A USE FOR THE EAR-MUFFS HIS WIFE KNITTED HIM FORK CHRISTMAS OLD GROUCHER’S IDEA OF A MERRY CHRISTMAS comicbooks.com