Life, 1923-07-19 · page 8 of 36
Life — July 19, 1923 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main cartoon shows a man standing while a woman sits, with the caption "Mr. Overwrite: HAVE YOU SEEN MY BELT AROUND THE HOUSE? HIS WIFE: NO, DEAR. DID YOU PUT IT AROUND THE HOUSE?" This is a domestic humor joke playing on the phrase "around the house"—the wife deliberately misinterprets her husband's question about his belt's location as him asking if he wrapped the belt around the exterior of their house. It's a pun-based gag typical of early 20th-century magazine humor. The page also contains unrelated satirical content about religion, pleasure, and social commentary, but the main visual joke relies solely on this simple wordplay misunderstanding.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
> Mr. verwaite: HAVE YOU SEEN MY BELT AROUND THE HOUSE? His Wife: No, DEAR, DID YOU PUT IT AROUND THE HOUSE? Combining Religion with Pleasure EARLY Betovep: Life is a golf course. For the first few years it is a fairway, but after that it is filled with bunkers, hazards, and rough places. At our birth, we take our stance at the baptismal font and shout “Fore!” We tee off with child- hood, and manhood finds us swearing and sweating down the course. There is ever a luring temptation on every side of us to distract us from the game, whether it be the songbird of money, the pocket flask of selfishness, or the distant vision of unlawful love; but we must concen- trate and play the game. We are but duffers at best, and unless we keep our eye on the ball of our eternal destiny, we are destined to lose to our invisible competitor, Satan. What matters it if everything seems to go awry? What matters it if others seem to be progressing faster than we do? Let us never lose faith in our follow through. Let us play golf. If we do these things and finish with a good score, we may look for- ward to heaven as to the nineteenth hole, where rest, comfort and spirit- ual refreshment await us. Amen. We shall now sing Hymn No. 18, “Onward, Fellow Golfers!” HE only place a woman's intuition doesn’t seem to serve her is at a baseball game. Hatterwocky ""T’WAS dunlap, and the panamas Did split and sennit in the straw; All trulywarnered were the felt, And the young silk mackinaw. “Beware the Billy-cock, my son! The knox that crush, the blocks that break! Beware the sarnoff bird, and shun The alpine wide-awake!” He took his bangkok sword in hand: Long time the stetson foe he sought— Sc rested he by the leghorn tree, And stood awhile in thought, And as in tuscan thought he stood, The Billy-cock, with nose aflame, Came plugging through the shako wood, And busbied as he came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The bangkok blade went snicker- snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went velouring back. “And hast thou slain the Billy-cock? Come to my arms, my tammish boy! O derby day! Fedoralay!” He jabbered in his joy. ’Twas dunlap, and the panamas Did split and sennit in the straw; All trulywarnered were the felt, And the young silk mackinaw. Edward W, Barnard. How to Keep Cool ULL flowers out of flower box. Sit in box. You get watered every day. Delightful. Go to Florida swamps. Hunt until you catch chills and fever. Cure fever, but keep chills. Tie sleigh bells to thermometer. Keep in ice box. Jingle bells when looking at thermometer. Tear five pages off calendar. Gaze upon December and wonder if sum- mer will never come. Concert is not what we say but what we think about ourselves. comicbooks.com