Life, 1922-01-19 · page 9 of 34
Life — January 19, 1922 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon depicts a Sunday school teacher asking a student named Jimmy if he counts to ten before hitting another boy. Jimmy replies that "the referee counts ten after I hit him." The satire mocks the contradiction between Sunday school's moral teaching (restraint, counting to ten before acting) and the boxing culture Jimmy actually experiences. The joke relies on the assumption that children—particularly boys—are more familiar with boxing rules than religious instruction. The "referee counts" reference suggests early 20th-century boxing was culturally prominent enough that even children knew its conventions better than traditional virtue lessons. The remaining page contains three unrelated humorous pieces: "It's the Other Fellow," "Fur Coat Arithmetic," and "The Eternal Question," which are brief satirical quips on conceit, materialism, and courtship.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SSS SSS pee — = SS — — — === B Gy SSS s SSS = SS Sunday School Teache: Jirimy: It’s the Other Fellow ONCEIT is some- thing like red paint. The first time one tries it, even a trifle of it looks bad. The next time it doesn't look ‘so bad. The third time you put on a little more to e it look better. Then you have to » adding a dab or two a day to make feel towards yourself the way you on the first day you tried it. “verybody else knows this but you. ‘ou carry your conceit about you so inly that even in your silences it is lent. Sut nobody dares tell you about it, ud if he did you wouldn't believe The Real Count Naw! him. Until one day, after you have struggled and suffered and risen above i and fallen and got up and are nd have married and are grow- g slightly gray, a little miss of ten climbs on your knee, and grabs your cheeks in both hands, and—yes, right there in the presence’ of horrid rela- tives—blurts out: “Daddy, mama says you are the most conceited man she knows.” And then you know. Fur Coat Arithmetic E unfeeling trapper makes one cruel trap. One cruel trap, plus one craving for food, makes one helpless animal. One hundred helpless animals make one fur coat. One fur coat, minus one large sum of money, makes one happy woman. Jimmy, do you count ten before you hit another boy? De referee counts ten after I hits him! The Eternal Question HEN the wind blows right From the blue-white light Of the glittering stars in the sky, And the frost alights With a step that blights, . And the porch vine’s withered and dry ; When the ground is pale And the water’s stale From gadding about with the ice: When the syrup’s slow And the wood stock’s low, And you have to be told of it twice, T know that you know The thermometer’s low, But both of us make so bold As to ask in’a tone That was bred in the bone: “Well, howdy! Ain't it cold?” Christy Holmes comicbooks.com