Life, 1922-12-07 · page 19 of 80
Life — December 7, 1922 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes British wartime restrictions on alcohol and meat consumption. The narrative describes a zealous enforcer raiding a Christmas celebration, arresting servants for drinking wassail and ale, and seizing meat as violations of rationing laws. The protagonist, "John Bull" (personification of Britain), awakens in terror from this nightmare. **The satire's point**: The dream mocks the absurdity of the government's wartime restrictions so severe they criminalize ordinary holiday traditions. "The Squire's Dream" frames these regulations as dystopian overreach—people imprisoned for celebrating Christmas normally. The cartoon criticizes both the restrictive wartime policies and their enforcement as excessive and tyrannical, reflecting public resentment toward rationing and prohibition measures during World War I-era Britain. The joke: such draconian control seems like a bad dream, yet mirrors actual wartime regulations.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
etarian Society and that the eating of meat is an offence against Act 4738, File A 732, and that the pen- alty is something fierce? Gather up, then, these abominations and come with me.” So saying, he herded the cook, two kitchen boys and a scullery maid, all laden with the incriminating evi- dence, out into the snow and the little procession took its way to the Law Courts. In the confusion of going, the door had been left ajar. Softly through the snowy street stepped a sinister person, wearing a high hat and a white tie; weedy hair strag- gled down over his ears and a fur- tive look shot from his little, beady eyes. Discovering the open door, he darted in and closed it softly be- hind him. Once inside he crept through the deserted kitchen and at the end of a long corridor came in- to a large pantry in which several servants, surrounded by flagons and hottles, were mixing a drink in a huge bowl on a_ table. “The door was flung open by a white garbed cook.” “A-ha!” cried the invader. “Chil- dren of the devil! I've caught you red-handed. The Christmas wassail, you say? I'll wassail you, you limbs of Satan. And what's that yonder? Tankards of ale? What a haul! Won't Messer Anderson at the G. H. Q. be delighted! Come with me, you godless whelps, and see that you The Squire’s Dream 19 carry the evidence most carefully.” * * * John Bull awoke with the perspira- tion streaming from his honest brow. “Watkins,” he cried as he struck a bell ‘sharply, “a double Scotch and soda.” R.K, Sleepy Street O echo in the quiet lane, For sunbeams dancing on each latticed pane Do trip so lightly with such sound- less sound, That even the much-leafed overhang- ing tree Hushes his ever-murmuring min- strelsy. Each quaint wee house Is hushed as a listening mouse! Wise shadows peep, — then bolder grow (A little child has told me so) ; They steal out across the cobbled road, And when a cloud across the sun speaks rain, All quietly they tip-toe back aga‘n. “Egad! Gentlemen and neighbors all; I had a most diverting and preposterous dream last night. I dreamed that men and women were going to prison for doing just what we are doing this very Christmas Eve.” comicbooks.com