Life, 1925-02-05 · page 10 of 36
Life — February 5, 1925 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon satirizes military bureaucracy. An officer asks another man to help get his five-year-old daughter to bed, treating this personal domestic task with the same formal urgency as military orders. The humor lies in the absurd contrast between the officer's stiff, hierarchical communication style and the mundane nature of bedtime—mocking how military language infiltrates everyday life. The bottom illustration accompanies "Mrs. Popi's Diary" and depicts what appears to be a forest scene with figures and an animal. The caption references cutting down the last tree in a county, with someone protesting that "law-makers still think this is a howling wilderness"—satirizing governmental neglect of environmental destruction and outdated attitudes toward land management.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Frivolous Statistics $ 000,000 is spent daily for business letters. A careful 9 analysis of several thousand of these communications has shown the cost to be apportioned as follows: Have in hand csv cvissacswes - +++ $500,000.00 Esteemed favor...............++++++++ 350,000.00 Contents noted............0.6++e++2++ 375,000.00 Inst. and Ultimo........ ++ 150,000.00 Received by us...........- a $00,000.00 Would say -» 100,000.00 150,000.00 +++ 125,000.00 Trusting to receiv a ceveeees 300,000.00 Thanking you for past favors. . - 450,000.00 Beg to inform..... -+ 375,000.00 Please advise saree 400,000.00 Nes Reps Diary Sup-ToTAaL..... $3975 000.00 The Real Message... seavviensevca'e 4,025,000.00 “OFFICER, WOULD YOU MIND COMING OVER TO OUR HOUSE AND HELPING US GET OUR FIVE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER TO GO TO BED?” Lay late, lacking the energy to be up and doing January wees . through having revelled until the small hours. 29th At last do I grasp the full force of the Biblical injunction against looking upon the wine when it's red, forasmuch as when it is red the odds are that it was brewed by an Italian grocer over- night for American hostesses who think it will make the punch go farther without doing it any harm, To the kitchen before luncheon to show Katie how to dress a salad with celery seed, and I did discover that the wooden fork and spoon which came with the set given me for Christmas by Ruthic Roberts had been thrown out with the excelsior in which it was packed, which put me in such a wax that Marge Boothby, upon her arrival, said the casual auditor would think that I had lost golden cutlery set with star sap- phires. But I do get a strange pleasure out of some of the simplest things in life, and took almost more delight in that modest fork and spoon than in the handsome bowl and plates which they accompanied. Jonuary Up _betimes to set about binding the frayed edges of 30th my best purse, which must be preserved because of the needlepoint inset on which I sank a small fortune, but could find no brown sewing-silk, nor was there any available short of a ten- block journey. Lord! an do we ever move again, let the butcher and baker be wheresoever they may, but I shall settle in no neighborhood which does Stranger: stor! Let THE LAW TAKE ITs CouRSE! not have a notions shop on or near the “WHAT LAW? THAT FELLER JUST CUT DOWN THE LAST TREE IN THE COUNTY (Continued on page 30) AND THE LAW-MAKERS STILL THINK THIS IS A HOWLING WILDERNESS.” comicbooks.com