Life, 1923-06-28 · page 25 of 37
Life — June 28, 1923 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces from *Life* magazine: 1. **"Song of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police"**: A humorous poem mocking the romanticized image of Canadian Mounted Police from movies and literature. The joke is that despite their glamorous public reputation—rescuing heroines, posing heroically for artists—the actual job is mundane and boring. The "consideration with another" refrain emphasizes that beneath the adventure narrative, it's "rather fun" only in comparison to genuinely tedious duties. 2. **"The Penitent" cartoon**: A judge condemns a man for beating his wife after only a year of marriage. The defendant's response—that he "realizes now it's wrong to start so soon"—is darkly comic; he's not rejecting domestic violence itself, only the timing, implying it's acceptable later in marriage. This reflects the era's tragic normalization of spousal abuse. 3. **"Wandering Thoughts"**: A humorous piece about mental distraction, where a simple phrase triggers stream-of-consciousness associations spanning art history, literature, and trivia—absurdist comedy about how the mind works. The bottom cartoon, "Litter-Ally Speaking," shows dogs with open mouths, likely a pun-based joke (unclear without caption).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Song of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (Sung to a Clear, Cold Mountain Air.) W HN the Injin’s not engaged in ‘is employment, Of composing ‘is Injinious little plans, Our capacity for innocent enjoyment, Surpasses almost any other man’s. Our feelings we with difficulty smoth- er, When constabulary duty’s to be done, But take one coysideration with an- other, A Royal Mounted job is rather fun. When the movie man 'as finished with ‘is cranking, And we've rescued of the 'eroine in time, The artists line us up in poses swank- ing, For to draw red-blooded ’e-men in their prime. Then the author boys (who love us like a mother) And the poets, sing our praises on the run. Ah, take one consideration with an- other, A Royal Mounted job is rather fun! A.C. M. Azoy, Jr. Some Other Longest Days THE day the telephone company told you it would send a man around to install a telephone in your new apartment the first thing in the morning. The day before the Volstead Act repealer goes into effect. The day the office clock stopped. The day you volunteered to help make sandwiches for the Sunday school picnic. (Children’s list.) The last day of school. The day before the night before Christmas. LIFE — Y = THE PENITENT Judge: YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF! MARRIED ONLY A YEAR AND BEAT YOUR WIFE! Defendant: JUDGE, I REALIZE NOW IT’S WRONG TO START SO SOON, Wandering Thoughts TH phrase had barely escaped my lips when a_ thousand fancies struck me. I began to dwell upon the marble quarries of Carrara, situated on the side of the purple Apennines, and the little cemetery in the near-by * village of Leghorn; upon the sagas or Scandinavian myths of the twelfth century woven about Lodbrok, Valk- ina, Blomstrurvalla, Olaf Tryggva- Sonar and Voluspa; upon Raphael's painting of St. Cecilia that hangs in the Academy of Fine Arts in Bolog- na; upon the nefarious drowning de- vices established by Jean Baptiste Carrier of Nantes and the so-called “Republican Marriages”; upon the auburn hair of the barmaid at the Saracen’s Head at Glastonbury; upon the statues of Mars and Neptune on the Giant’s Staircase in the Doge's LITTER-ALLY SPEAKING Palace in Venice; upon the strain of “Hello, My Rag-Time Gal” from the first hand-organ I ever heard, in East Nineteenth Street; upon the poetic movement of the Della Cruscans; up- on the continental accent of the head- waiter at the Restaurant Con Terraza Los Dos Hermanos in Havana; upon the Assyrian collections in the Kouy- unjik Gallery of the British Museum ; upon carrier pigeons, the Grand Prix, iced coffee, the Medici, poker dice, Corinthian capitals, belladonna, the binomial theorem, deep-sea fishing, the Eighteenth Amendment, Positiv- ism, Swiss cheese, the Ostrogoths, succotash and Atlantic City. *** * she said. I answered. Charles G. Shaw. “Say it agai “T love you, comicbooks.com