Life, 1929-07-12 · page 20 of 48
Life — July 12, 1929 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces: **Top cartoon**: A "Jersey Settler" caption explains the drawback of settling new land—mosquitoes will appear within weeks. The humor is straightforward: settling undeveloped areas has practical inconveniences. **Bottom cartoon**: Shows people parachuting, with dialogue "Your father never will learn how to fall" / "No, his form is simply terrible." This appears to satirize parachuting as a novelty or sport, mocking someone's lack of skill at the new activity. **"Mrs. Pep's Diary"** (right): A gossipy column by Baird Leonard discussing social observations—iced tomato juice, detective fiction addiction, intolerance for crime fiction tropes. It's light satire of contemporary middle-class concerns and literary tastes. The page reflects 1920s-era humor about modern conveniences, emerging technologies (parachuting), and social pretensions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“No, his form is simply terrible.” “Your father never will learn how to fall.” mosquitoes for a day or so. Just about the most useful day we can think of is Wednesday. Very often, and especially in Summer, if it were not for Wednesday there would be nothing to keep the week-ends apart. The man in the advertise- ments hasn't worn that collar all day. Jersey Setter: Of course, it has its drawbacks. In a couple of weeks there'll be a few June 20—A_ beaker of by iced tomato juice for Baird breakfast, because of the Leonard great heat, after which I did stretch out on the chaise-longue in my thinnest night- robe to ponder this and that, in es- pecial the bloodthirstiness which an addiction to detective tayles is develop- ing in me, for not only have I be come intolerant of such menaces as stolen jewels, political swindles and scientific research tending towards in- ternational amelioration, demanding wilful murder on the first page in their stead, but I do scorn plots in which the criminal turns out to be a pet gorilla or the village idiot, and have no patience soever with an au- thor who permits the guilty one to swallow poison or shoot himself with a cleverly concealed revolver imme- diately after he has made a full con- fession. My dish is deliberate, cold- blooded crime, with handcuffs and im- minent trial by jury in the final chap- ter. Reflecting, too, on the experiences of various classmates as related at our recent reunion, from presentations at the court of St. James to relief work amongst flood victims, and it does seem a pity that no bridge enthusiast seized so fortuitous an opportunity to do some missionary work for the game of contract, or that no epicure made an effort towards standardizing a de- (Continued on Page 36) comicbooks.com