Life, 1925-12-03 · page 59 of 84
Life — December 3, 1925 — page 59: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top illustration satirizes **1890s bar culture**, depicting a saloon ("Jake's Place") where men drank complimentary hot toddies on Christmas morning. The scene mocks the era's casual drinking habits—men lingering at bars until summoned home by wives with messages about dinner ("the turkey's on the table"). It's nostalgic humor about old customs, labeled "The Gay Nineties" to evoke that decade's perceived permissiveness. Below, "The Eleventh Hour" presents two brief satirical pieces about contemporary figures. One mocks a struggling humorist who's lost inspiration writing about **Calvin Coolidge's** famous taciturnity and **Henry Ford's** eccentric dancing. The second is a quip about **the Prince of Wales** repeatedly falling from horses—likely referencing Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII), whose mishaps were tabloid fodder. The "Fairy Story" ending humorously praises someone for *not* bungling turkey carving—a mild joke about incompetence.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
¥) KAA Z > wa QLD CRow RYE; i THE GAY NINETIES CHRISTMAS MORNING AT JAKE'S PLACE DOWN ON THE CORNER, WHERE HOT TOM AND JERRYS WERE “ON THE HOUSE” TO OLD CUSTOMERS, THIS SESSION USUALLY LASTED UNTIL SOMEBODY'S LITTLE WILLIE ARRIVED WITH THE MESSAGE, “MAMMA SAYS PAPA IS TO COME RIGHT STRAIGHT HOME—THE TURKEY'S ON THE TABLE,” The Eleventh Hour N_ his dingy hall-bedroom the humorist lay starving. The humorist raised himself on one elbow and gave a For sheer lack of inspiration he had written no jokes for glance at the headlines. onths, and he had long since spent the money he had made ved!" he gasped weakly, and fainted. vin Coolidge’s taciturnity and Henry Ford's terpsi- The Prince of Wales had fallen off his horse again. chorean ventures. Suddenly his landlady—who from similar crises in the AIRY STORY—Once a young married man_ invited past was completely aware of his predicament—burst into friends to a turkey dinner and said he would carve the the room, eestatically waving a newspaper extra. bird himself, which he did very neatly. comicbooks.com