Life, 1924-02-14 · page 11 of 36
Life — February 14, 1924 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct satirical pieces from *Life* magazine: **Top section ("Choose Your Exit Now"):** A humorous essay arguing that New Yorkers should preemptively choose how they'll die in the city since it's inevitable. The author compares various methods—taxicabs, subway trains, ambulances—with darkly comic observations about traffic hazards and the self-sufficiency of emergency vehicles. It's social satire targeting New York City's notorious dangerous traffic and congestion, treating accidental death as an inevitable urban reality rather than exception. **Bottom cartoon ("Ultra-Modern Education"):** Depicts a gun-shooting class for "jealous wives," satirizing 1920s-30s gender politics and changing social mores. The joke targets women's expanding roles and leisure activities while maintaining traditional marital anxieties—it's simultaneously mocking both women's independence and male insecurity about infidelity. Both pieces reflect period anxieties about modern urban life and shifting social conventions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Choose Your Exit Now AVING the conclusion that it is impossible to New York for time without gett hould gx vu shi pick come to inevitable live ii ained length ¢ run over at the @ systematically ani the you'd like to have hit you at now, 1 still can sort of wagon A good many people are partial to found that when they run over you, you are em- taxicabs, but I've always barrassed by feeling that you ought to tip the driver; you can get around this with and they feeling fire-engines, have the additional advantage of being able to ignore tra which allows them to take you off with some u from having life. But very rough—far rougher than taxicabs n't be bad so many wheels; if speed and save re- member your past they're Subway express trains w if they didn’t have you are hit by a trai say, cars, you'll be run over seventy-two separate times befe it gets through. I have studied mobile destruction from all angles and I know that there's nothing on can wheels that compare with hospital ambulances; their drivers have the bell to play with, which keeps their minds away from tips; they are faster than the fire-engines and don't take the matter nearly so fiercely, and being run over by them is not so pro: SINCE THAT TENDERFOOT SPENT THE ULTRA-MODERN EDUCATION THE And with which an ambulance can longed as it is by express trains the ease he made to hit you is one of its most you don’t have to go h traffic to find it; y t even have to get in the way—it'll ome after you. Some to hit you, but drivers—they would just as soon run In fact, they'd rather they get paid on com valuable points dodging thr cabmen hesi tate these ambulance over you as not run over you mission. tut the greatest advantage is that this wagon is self-su it will SUMMER DOG-CONE OUTFIT HAS GONE AT THE HOG-WILD, JEALOUS WIVES’ CLASS IN HUSBAND- SHOOTING run over my « street bulane AX RANCH THE you, »pinion that c. e for de TIST jot of labor Ah WHOLE AT TARGET to g aking y is that 1 pick you up. > the H and take t run over This painting represent it + comicbooks.com