Life, 1921-01-06 · page 14 of 44
Life — January 6, 1921 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from Life magazine contains several brief satirical observations about contemporary issues, followed by a social cartoon. The cartoon depicts an elegant evening party where a woman apologizes for her late arrival, claiming she's "only half an hour" late. The hostess responds sarcastically: "Oh, I thought I was late." The joke satirizes the social pretense and anxiety of the upper class—specifically how fashionable society figures chronically arrive late to events, yet each guest worries *they* are the tardy one. It's gentle satire about social insecurity and the unspoken rules governing polite society gatherings, where arriving unfashionably *on time* was apparently considered poor form. The accompanying short pieces address postal service reform, international art preservation, and criminal justice anecdotes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE: This Bubble World pseu has a coin which is square in shape. Possibly it is such a coin as this that the New York Interborough Rapid Transit Company has in mind when it calls for increased fares and a square deal from the public. eee A weighing instrument in the Bank of England is so sensitive it wili show the difference in weight caused by writing a signa- ture ena slip of paper. We can easily see how the signature ona check, for instance, might make a difference of a thousand pounds, eee The whole country is looking forward to the G. O, P. im- proving the G. P. O. eee The finest result of the abbreviated working day is that it will ae! eventually eliminate panics. Nobody can tell the difference when there is a strike. The workingman labors such a short period each day you don't miss him from the street, anyway, And in the mining region, if one of them disappears for a while to shake the furnace and comes back with a smudge on his face, everybody thinks he’s been and done a day’s work. eee The Italian government is intending to turn the wooded island in Lake Como into an artists’ retreat. Let's hope it will be done thoroughly, with the erection of a stout fence aro the island and the appointment of an adequate number of gam wardens. Artists must be preserved at any cost. eee Dalton Hall, who is doin the South Carolina penite y ten-year hard-labor sentence in ecently escaped and made h way to Augusta, Ga., where he was married. The day after the ceremony he voluntarily returned to prison. cee Unless the pay of postal employees, and the conditions under which they work, are improved, the civil service will go out of existence, and we shall be forced to return to the ancient and rotten spoils system. It is up to every member of the new Con gress to pay attention to this fact, and to act accordingly. Hi She: 'M AFRAID I'M LATE. The Hostess: ONLY HALF AN HOUR, “on, 1 THO! GMT 1 WAS LATE,” comicbooks.com