Life, 1926-08-05 · page 16 of 41
Life — August 5, 1926 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page features a cartoon titled "The Gay Nineties" depicting people playing croquet—a fashionable lawn game of that era. The caption explains that women's clothing styles sometimes interfered with gameplay; the modishly-dressed woman in the foreground must drag her skirt across the court, which humorously puts her at a disadvantage for her next wicket. Below are three unrelated humor sections: a "Strictly American Lexicon" defining slang terms, an "Oral Test" joke about arithmetic, and "Young Man Wanted" anecdote about a naive pharmacy employee. The cartoon satirizes late-19th-century women's fashion—specifically the impractical trailing skirts that constrained movement—while gently mocking both the fashion-conscious women who wore them and the leisure pursuits of the wealthy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE STYLES OF THE DAY SOMETIMES PROVED A FACTOR IN TIE POPULAR GAME OF CROQUET. ODISH LADY IN TIE FOREGROUND, IN STROLLID HAS HAPPENED TO DRAG HER SKIRT ACROSS THE BALL, LEAVIN: The Gay Nineties DUT AWAITIN T—BY THE MEREST PRANK OF FATE— FOR IN- HER TURN TO PLAY, IN A MUCIL BETTER POSITION FOR HER NEXT WICKET. A Strictly American Lexicon 1, noun. Bill-of-fare. myer. pronoun. We. Drink made sassprille Tr, noun, from a root, cramberry, noun. A fruit. lie-berry, noun. A room for books. prezentment, noun. A premonition. heevy-us, adj. Naughty. 1, verb, Accept. 2, prep. sor, verb. Pluperfect of “see.” seen, verb, Past tense of “see.” “Have you ever sor ‘Lay heem’?” “Yeh, I seen it yesdy. Willard Huntington Wright. Oral Test EACHER: Take four out of five and what do you have, Tommy? Tommy: Pyorrhea, ma'am. Bo- Young Man Wanted HEN Jim Cray took charge of his father’s business, he put old Tom Bridges right out on the street. “He's spent thirty years behind a prescription counter,” Jim ys. “What does he know about running a drug store?” IAMILIARITY also breeds con- tent. comicbooks.com