Life, 1924-09-18 · page 24 of 36
Life — September 18, 1924 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous illustrated alphabet entry (or educational parody) about snakes, using absurdist wordplay and crude woodcut-style drawings typical of early 20th-century Life magazine satire. The page mocks both snakes themselves and human attitudes toward them through exaggerated characteristics: snakes are "lazy," "clammy," have "split tongues" and "low brows," suffer from "rheumatism in their knuckles," and eat quickly. Dark humor emerges in references to snake bites causing death ("liquidate your life insurance") and the "dreaded hip disease." The satire appears directed at nature writing and popular misconceptions rather than political targets. Small vignettes describe snake varieties (coon snake, hoop snake, garter snake, garden adder) with comic non-sequiturs about their behavior and the folk remedies people use. The overall effect is absurdist humor—treating snakes as if they were bumbling characters with human foibles, combining genuine zoological details with pure invention for comedic effect.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
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