Life, 1925-04-09 · page 16 of 41
Life — April 9, 1925 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces: 1. **"Common Person in Foreground" cartoon** (top): A satirical illustration of a soldier in a trench, captioned as someone who "won't have to fight in the front-line trenches, even though I do have to pay the bills." This references WWI's class disparities—wealthy men could avoid combat through bribery or connections while ordinary citizens bore the burden. 2. **"Mrs. Pops's Diary"** (left): A woman's account of her exhausted husband's behavior and her theatrical frustrations. The humor derives from domestic dissatisfaction and marital conflict. 3. **"How is the bride's cherry pie?" scene** (bottom right): A domestic exchange between mother and son about church attendance, using food as conversational pretext. The satire mocks rigid maternal authority and reluctant compliance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Common Person in Foreground: wooray! HERE'S A BATTLE WHERE I DON’T HAVE TO FIGHT IN THE FRONT- LINE TRENCHES, EVEN THOUGH 1 PO HAVE TO PAY THE BILLS. — , Ns Lops Diary My husband, poor wretch, home all day with a bad cold and two secretaries, April 2nd hard at polishing off his brief for an important law case, all a-twitter over this and that and bawling such things as, What kind of language is Latin, any- if aught could be done about so off by myself to the play- house, choosing “Candida,” the last piece in the world I was in a mood to sce. Moreover, I found it downright dull, and looked in vain for the dramatic and spiritual splendor which the criticks seem to find in it, the spectacle of a level-headed woman having to settle off a pair of male nit-wits be- ing pathetic but traordinary, Walking home through the town, | was accosted by an urchin wail- ing bitterly that it had lost not ex: its mother, so in a taxi to the nearest station-house with the little thing, being distrait as to procedure, and when they turned it over to a kindly woman, with promises to find its home and parents, I had a Quixotic impulse to try to keep it for my own. Where have you been? said Sam upon my late return, and realizing suddenly that I was too wrought up and tired to tell him, I feigned the amnesia which we are always reading about in the jour- nals, and pretended to recall nought which had happened to me since I left the house. This put him into so terrible a state that I was at some pains to keep a straight face, and when I began to sing a little wildly, like poor Ophelia, (Continued on page 32) lll " i fr Sonny: Momma Goose ATELY Mother Goose has been bowdlerized, so that youngsters may escape the supposed immoral influence of the earlier versions. This seems stupid. Nursery rhymes should prepare chil- dren for the world into which they are growing. What Mother Goose needs is not devitalizing, but revitalizing, some- what as follows: Jack and Jill went to the still To buy a quart of whisky. Jack passed out, but Jill was stout And so she just felt frisky. cee Higgledy-piggledy, saucy chick, Grabbed the men and grabbed them quick. By thirty she'd had husbands three; Her fourth awaits her next decree. eee Old Mother Hubbard went to the cup- board To shake up a cocktail of gin. When she got there the cupboard was bare— Her daughter had lately been in. K.M. “LJOW is the bride's cherry pie?” “Oh, it's more to be pitted than scorned.” i ¥ HURRY UP, SONNY, OR WE'LL BE LATE FOR CHURCH. COULDN'T WE WAIT TILL THE SECOND SHOW, MOTHER? comicbooks.com