Life, 1928-05-31 · page 21 of 34
Life — May 31, 1928 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon ("First Whale/Second Whale"):** Two whales in the ocean discuss a man in the water between them. The joke plays on the biblical story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale—one whale reassures the other that the man is "just off the boat," implying he's a recent immigrant. The humor derives from treating the immigrant as a foreign object that needs explanation, reflecting period attitudes toward newcomers. **Text Content:** The page features sports commentary by John Kieran arguing that lacrosse deserves varsity letter recognition despite being classified "minor," and a humorous essay by Robert Benchley responding to a Seattle newspaper editor's criticism about the Prince of Wales' poor horsemanship. Benchley satirizes the situation by invoking "Mother Earth" and the "Law of Gravitation" to absurdly explain why even royalty must fall when horses fail—gently mocking both the critic's nationalism and social pretension about class distinctions. **Minor Item ("Courting Danger"):** A brief joke about a couple's lipstick application interrupted by a bull.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Rr Row BS&E~e BE = PaRere aA — een oe TUS First Wuat : Are you sure this guy Jonah is all right? Seconp Wuate: Sure he is; he's just off the boat. Smashing a tennis ball for months or chasing a golf ball all season for dear old Alma Mater is just as fatiguing as going into the last quarter of the big football game and winning a varsity letter by tak- ing one good kick in the head. Captain “Biff” Jones, Army football coach, says that football is a tea party compared with herosse, which is classed as a “minor’ sport. And if taking punishment is to de- termine the size of the varsity letter, a college water-polo player is entitled to a letter at least six feet high. Here's a sport that combines all the thrills of assault and battery with the additional sensations of drowning. To put it in military terms, the grant- ing of major letters for minor sports will mect with general approval. John Kieran. COURTING DANGER Satty: Oo! Is that a bull down there at the other end of this field? Epcar: Yes, it is. Will you stop using that lipstick? Mr. Benchley’s Reply to Mr. Ritchie of Seattle (Continued from page 11) If, for example, you, or the Prince of Wales, or even Mr. Ritchie of the Seattle (Wash.) Star, should be on a horse which was jumping a hedge and the horse, through laziness or perversity, should fall, a message is immediately telegraphed to Mother Earth through that wonderful system of wireless by means of which Nature takes care of her children and sees that they get badly hurt every once in a while, and this message, if we could decode it, would read something like this: “Rider of chestnut mare at third jump is hanging in mid-air without any horse under him, What shall I do?” Immediately on receiving this mes- sage, Mother Earth looks up the Law of Gravitation covering this point and sends word to the rider of the chestnut mare: “Come down at once. Are you crazy hanging up there like that?” And down comes the rider of the chestnut mare, right about on the same spot as the chest- nut mare herself. Now, as yet there has not been any special exemption passed making it un- necessary for a member of the Royal Family to obey this law, A king is just as much under its jurisdiction as residents of Seattle, Washington. Consequently, when a Prince’s horse falls, the Prince really has no alternative but at least to make some pretense of falling. And so the impression gets around that he is not a good horseman. Not, of course, among Seattle cowboys, who understand riding and its intricacies, but along the Atlantic seaboard where steeplechasing is not prac- ticed and where nobody obeys any laws, including the Law of Gravitation. Perhaps we haven’t made this very clear, but, as we said in the beginning, we don’t quite understand who it was that Mr. Ritchie had in mind as needing en- lightenment on the matter. It really is very easy to explain, once you get the hang of it. Robert Benchley. comicbooks.com’