Life, 1923-05-31 · page 13 of 37
Life — May 31, 1923 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several satirical pieces mocking early 20th-century social pretensions and gender dynamics. **"Counting Up the Gate"** (by McC.H.) satirizes sports club management, listing attendance figures and expenses for an event. The joke appears to mock how organizations obsess over financial calculations rather than the actual experience. **"The Lure"** (by E.A.C.) is a poem mocking romantic gestures—comparing a man's kisses to "battered coins" and suggesting romantic flattery is merely habitual consumer behavior, like buying a newspaper daily. The cartoon at top shows a couple discussing a book called "The Failure of Marriage," with the woman noting they've profited enough to fund a European honeymoon—satirizing how marriage advice literature had become commercialized. **"Wary"** mocks a nurse and fisherman's conversation about a newborn, using the fisherman's occupation as setup for wordplay about keeping babies "small."
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
i \ pay, Vey “Has George made anything out of that book of his—The Failure of Marriage’?” “Yes; Alice says he has made enough for them to go to Europe on a second honeymoon.” Counting Up the Gate HE secretary of the World’s Champions handed the president of the club a slip of paper. “We ought to play to thirty-five thousand people on open- ing day if the weather is fine. I have just figured it up and I don’t think I am more than a thousand or so out of the way.” This is what was on the memorandum: Men who dislike excitement of opening game.... 3,400. Men who say the games are fixed and never go.. 3,500. Women who go on their husbands’ invitation... 25. People who wouldn’t walk across street to see game. Men who remember important conferences sudden! Fans Total paid admission. \ctors on newspaper men’s pa: City officials seeing everythi Total deadheads Total attendance. Wary Nurse: Here's your brand-new baby brother. Wituie (a fisherman): Can you keep ’em that small ? WueEn thieves fall out police departments get credit for efficiency. The Lure KNEW it was wrong, of course, But his lips proffered the kiss delicately, As a child offers a flower. Your kisses are battered coins Such as a man rattles in his pocket To buy something habitual, necessary, and unsur- prising : Like his daily newspaper. I had a fancy once again To wear a flower. “Do you believe in psychology, Mr. Glubb?” “Oh, I suppose everybody has some of it,—I have a little myself.” comicbooks.com