Life, 1927-02-10 · page 14 of 43
Life — February 10, 1927 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes the 1890s craze for roller skating and bicycles. The illustration shows elegantly dressed couples at what appears to be a social gathering, with one woman being swept along on roller skates—literally losing control and nearly falling, while her male companion tries to stabilize her. The caption's joke centers on the irony that during this era, people became so skilled at maintaining balance on these new vehicles that some "managed to get quite adept at it before the madness suddenly petered out." Others, the text notes wryly, "were not so hot"—clearly illustrated by the woman's precarious stance. This mocks both the fashionable obsession with these technologies and the uneven competence people displayed when adopting them.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUST ABOUT THE TIME THAT A FEVERISIL DECADE The Gay Nineties HAD LEARNED HOW TO KEEP UTs BALANCE ON A PESKY BICYCLE, ALONG CAME THE CRAZE FOR ROLLER SKATES SWEPT IT OFF ITS SET—IN MOST CASES, LITERALLY. GET QUITE ADEPT AT IT BEFORE THE MADN COURSE, WERE NOT so 110T. Why Stop with Cobb and Speaker and the 1917 Baseball Scandal? HERE are rumors that Adam’s alibi was applesauce. What about that weather bureau leak which gave Noah an advance tip on the hurricane? Did the gamblers influence Achilles to lie down at Troy? How come the experts picked Goliath while the “wise money” was on David? Although supposedly hungry, the lions acted in a most peculiar man- ner when Daniel was thrown to them. It never happened before. How do we know Leonidas wasn't aying to the gallery at Thermop- > Did Leander swim the Hellespont under official conditions? And who can say that the Persians weren't bearing down when they al- lowed the Grecks to beat them at Marathon? B. F. Sylvester. SOME, HOWEVER, MANAGED TO SUDDENLY PETERED OUT. OTHERS, OF Such As What? HE Pullmans used to have a cor- ner on odd names. But now a fel- low cannot tell, when he hears a new one, whether it’s the name of a race horse, a new suburban development, a brand of gasoline, some insidious ase, a new radio set, or the ap- pellation of a telephone exchange. war the Coolidge Administra- tion really needs i Poet Laureate to intensify the silence. comicbooks.com Bu Or U Wi