Life, 1928-08-30 · page 24 of 36
Life — August 30, 1928 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon by Ralph Barton satirizes New York City traffic chaos by depicting the ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal—famous for crossing the Alps with war elephants—attempting the seemingly impossible feat of crossing Fifth Avenue amid modern automobile traffic. The joke compares Hannibal's legendary military achievement to navigating NYC streets. The cartoon shows an elephant (Hannibal's iconic transport) struggling through congested traffic with vehicles everywhere, suggesting that modern Manhattan traffic is as formidable an obstacle as the Alps were in ancient times. The caption's ironic title emphasizes the absurdity: crossing Fifth Avenue has become more dangerous and difficult than historical military campaigns. This reflects genuine 1920s concerns about urban congestion and automobile-induced chaos in major cities, making the ancient general's struggle metaphorically relevant to contemporary urban life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
It Was Nor Like Tuts in tHE Oven Days RALPH TRUER ~a, Hannibal Crosses Fifth Avenue—Against the Traffic of the mothers of boys are beginning to wash their faces once in a while so as to get them broke in for school. Some of the little devils are hard to catch. Judd Mortimer Lewis. New York Tue Future sheepskin boys are beginning to don the moleskin. ***Quite an exodus from the summer re- sorts now and our two big depots are replete with baggage of returning vaca- tioners, they bringing the little tots home for school. ***Rey. Straton will preach Sunday. ***Senator Frelinghuysen’s daughter Vic- toria will be married Fri. Sept. 7, the groom being John Bates, Jr., of Morris- town. Victoria is a member of the Jr. league, that maybe being why she is go- ing to marry a Jr. *°°Charley Norris the writer writes from Saratoga, Calif., that he has had trouble with his pelvis and gives us advice on what to do for our own, Out in California Chas. is known as the Pelvic Oracle. ***Looks like the Cubs would win the pennant, like we say every year. ***The campaign is waxing hot and heavy, principally the latter. ***The Thanatopsis Literary and Inside Straight? Club will begin to hold _ its weekly discussions next Sat. eve. et seq. ***Central Park West is being torn up, also some other streets. A lot of the streets that are not torn up need paving. ***R. C. Benchley of Scarsdale spent last evening in N. Y. to go to the theater. ***More anon in next issue. F. P. A. Birmingham NetcHeornoop News wishes to make it known that B'ham is to have a new high- powered radio broadcasting station. Ad- vertising in its way is all right, say we. **°Zac Smith, Jr., is now residing in Hollywood, our suburb that is competing with California, *°*The Alabama Theater sure has a real box office attraction. She handles quite a few tickets and etc. ***James Saxon Childers, a book writer, is on his way, around the world. Robert H. Brown. Chicago Mayor Titompson has been quite busy attending to his duties in the Wisconsin woods of late but it is expected he will take a short vacation at the city hall in the near future. ***Several haberdashers near the U. of C. are said to be preparing for the fall in- flux of students by discontinuing their lines of hats and sock supporters. ***Professor Henry J. Cox, our genial weather observer, is expected back from Europe shortly. Henry made quite a study comicbooks.com