Life, 1927-04-21 · page 5 of 39
Life — April 21, 1927 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of early 20th-century humor: **"Not Presentable"**: A cartoon depicting people at a boat, with Jack refusing to leave because he's "torn a hole in my grease"—a joke about the social embarrassment of damaging one's clothing while engaged in casual activity. **"Fly-Swatting from a New Angle"**: An essay by George S. Chappelle advocating fly-swatting as a sport, comparing it to hunting. The piece satirizes the decline of frontier activities by suggesting this domestic pest-control activity offers similar satisfaction. **"An Even Deal" & "Definition"**: Brief jokes about car maintenance and a definition of "closet" as storage for a woman's excessive clothing—typical period humor about gender roles. The page reflects early 1900s American leisure culture and social attitudes rather than specific political content.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Not Presentable Jack: come on, Let's ort ovrt. Hazel: 1 can’t—1’VE TORN A HOLE IN MY GREASE. Fly-Swatting from a New Angle PRING...but I will lay off the S" tnal season which others doubtless will mention. I re- fer to it only to introduce the fact that along with the trilling birds, newing pussywillows and croaking crocuses, the Musca domestica, or human ho y, will soon be with us and, at one fell swat, millions of cutraged citizens will spring into action. Fly-swatting, as a sport, is a com- bination of hunting and tennis or other racket-game. Look at it for a moment from the hunter's viewpoint. Usually the Nimrod must buy expen- sive gear and seck his quarry afar. The fly comes to us en masse. One's home is the hunting-ground. An ex- cellent half-ounce swatter is within the reach of all. But we go at our forget that the American bison once roamed our prairies in ap- parently limitless quanti- ties. To-day the bison is nearly extinct, as is his contemporary of the air, the lordly condor. As sure 8s Fate, unless protective fylaws are passed, the time will come when the fy will suffer a similar ex- tinction, I pass by with scorn the tsportsmanlike creatures vho lic in wait for the fly with all manner of lures, traps and baited devices. How detestable are the pendent tapes smeared with stickum-goo, the treacle-spread pa- pers, the wire contraptions and— worst of all—the saucers full of lethal fluid. A friend once showed me how to kill hundreds of flies by holding under them a cup full of hot soapsuds into which they instantly fell. “It is painless,” he said. “They are asleep.” I turned from him in disgust. Talk about shooting birds on the ground! No, the swatter is the only way. This is where the sport-angle comes She: po You THINK THAT PRINCETON MAN REALLY MEANT TO HURT YOU WHEN HE HIT YOU WITH A SEAL RING? Harvard Veteran: WELL, HE CERTAINLY GAVE ME THAT IMPRESSION. in. The deft use of the swatter, the graceful carry-through, the proper stance and delicacy of touch, espe- cially when the fly is in a corner or on the edge of some precious objet d'art—ah, there is a real he-sport. The finest form of the exercise is that in which each Swatter has a Beater who rouses the flies with a duster while the Swatter makes his kills on the wing. Believe me, there is nothing tame about that. With further publicity I hope to arouse our sportsmen to a sense of what they are missing by their present attitude. With that accomplished we shall see a very different sentiment animate their breasts when, with the first spring days, we hear the gentle buzz of the migratory midge and the great, glad cry of “Swatter up!” George S. Chappell. An Even Deal “y ou certainly do keep your car nice and clean.” “Yes, and my car re- turns the compliment by keeping me the same way.” Definition LOSET—A place in which a girl keeps most of her clothes when she’s dressed up. comicbooks.com