Life, 1921-01-06 · page 30 of 44
Life — January 6, 1921 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Illustration:** A fashion sketch captioned "Fashion will always be considerably kinder to some than to others." This satirizes how clothing and fashion trends flatter certain body types while unflattering others—a timeless commentary on fashion's selective accessibility. **Bottom Cartoon:** A lawyer receiving complaint about his bill from a client. The humor lies in the lawyer's outrageous fee being so high that the client jests it would be cheaper to break the law than pay for legal services. This is satire of inflated legal fees—a perennial complaint about the legal profession. **"Little Acorns" Letters:** Two reader anecdotes showing how small manipulations compound. The first describes a child's confidence game with a nickel; the second, a lawyer's fee equaling the settlement amount while clients thank him for "saving" money. Both mock self-serving rationalization and the ease of duping people through clever framing. The page's theme: how people justify questionable behavior through perspective manipulation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
FASIMICN WILL ALWAYS BE CONSIDERABLY KINDER TO SOM! THAN TC OTHERS CoMING next week—Winners of Lire’s Title Contest. Little Acorns D AR JIM: Tommy d Mike had a fight over whether Tommy owed Mike a dime or not. They fought till both kids were sick of fighting but wouldn't quit. Yesterday I asked Tommy if he'd give Mike a nickel and call it square. He wouldn't at first, but finally said he would. Then I asked Mike if he'd give me a nickel if Tommy would make it up. He said he would, so I got the nickel from Tommy, showed it to Mike without letting him touch it, and then explained how Tommy gave it to him but he owed it to me so it was mine. He was mad at first,, but he’s all right now. (Thirty years after.) Dear Jim: The Milmer Motor Co, and the Liberty Storage Co. had a scrap over the amount of a bill. I settled it, saved my clients, the Liberty Storage people, long and expensive litigation, and al- though my fee equalled the settlement, I was “SAY, OLD MAN, THAT LAST BILL YOU SENT ME FOR LEGAL SERVICES able to make them see their gain. I accepted WAS SOMETHING FIERCE. WHY, AT THAT RATE IT WOULD PAY ME TO their gratitude gracefully! KEEP WITHIN THE LAW.” Jeannette Phillips Gibbs. comicbooks.com