Life, 1926-07-15 · page 22 of 37
Life — July 15, 1926 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks small-town boosterism—the exaggerated promotion of population figures by local Chambers of Commerce. A traveling salesman tells a hotel clerk that Jonesville's claimed population of 109,672 is inflated nonsense; he's watched the town artificially inflate numbers for decades depending on whoever runs the Chamber. The satire targets civic pride gone absurd: towns now jealously guard their population claims and fight over comparative sizes. The salesman laments he must memorize exact fractional figures rather than round numbers, since locals will lose business over inaccuracy. The accompanying cartoon shows a ship captain entertaining ladies with tall tales—visual parallel to the boosterism theme. # A Terrible Haunt (Joke) A tenant complains to an agent that the haunted house's ghostly former owner is unbearable. The punchline: the agent neglected to mention the ghost was a saxophone player—implying the noise/quality of saxophone playing is worse than any supernatural haunting. This is simply a joke about bad music.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Oo, SAY, CAPTAIN! LEMME SHOW you Til’ FU ‘SW F Jonesville keeps on the way I said the gray- taired traveling salesman to the chief desk man in the Hotel New Trianon, “its population will soon be half as big as the Cham- ber of Commerce claims and only ten or twenty thousand short of the estimate of the new city di- rectory. I've been making Jones- ville now for thirty years and I've seen the town grow; sometimes it would grow ten thousand in thirty days, depending on what kind of a live-wire was running the Chamber. When I started coming here the population was about forty thousand actual count; now I see you're claim- ing 109,672. I suppose you'd throw off the 672 if the Census Bureau would let you have the 109,000. “Of course, you don’t remember when this hotel was called the Smith House and Mrs. Eph Smith herself worked in the kitchen. That was before the waffle revival; and the LIFE. DAD’s sEAsIcK !” Growing Pains Greeks were still fighting for their liberty. Well, Jor le wasn't so big then but it wasn’t touchy about population, cither. You could talk about the size of different towns in the State without starting a fight All a salesman needed to do wi NUBBVILLE SPARK OUR BAND WILL EITHER HAVE TO IMPROVE ITS PRACTICIN’ IN THE ODD FELLOWS’ HALL OR PAY MORE RENT! SIGHT Y’EVER SAW IN ALL YouR carry the round numbers in his head for conversational purposes, but now I've got to have it all writ ten down in a notebook and memo rized. Suppose I'd be talking to one of my customers here and I'd happen to remark that Jonesville must have 100,000 people now. I'd lose his business. No; I’ve got to carry frac- tions in my head nowadays. Jones- ville probably will have 111,321 by the time I get back and I'll have to commit that. I wish all these towns would just decide on a good big population and stick to it.” McCready Huston. A Terrible Haunt GENT: Sir, I warned you be- fore you took this place that it was haunted by the ghost of the former owner. Enracep Tenant: Yes, but why the */9!% ! @¢X!!! didn’t you tell me he'd been a saxophone player? comicbooks.com