The Funnies - Quite Likely (1909)

Minnie Mermaid - Don't you wish you could go rowing with a Summer man?

Bessie Mermaid - No, I don't; men are lazy things. He'd probably make me scull over the stern with my tail!

Fletcherizing - Considerations for Your New Year's Resolutions

Whatever your opinion of modern medicine, you can always find something crazier in the past. Take this little comic from an August 1909 issue of Punch Magazine.

Fletcherism
The Disciple - Now, waiter, you may bring me the fish.

Fletcherism or "The Chewing Diet" got its name not from a doctor, but from a San Francisco art dealer who purportedly lost more than 40 pounds through chewing his food until it became liquefied and the spitting out what was left. He also advised chewing not only solids, but liquids...so masticate that coffee, fella. And he believed you should only eat (if that's what you call chewing stuff up and spitting it out) when "good and hungry", angry, or sad...personally, being made to chew my tea only to spit it out would make me both angry and sad.

Fletcher saw the machine as an analog for the human body. He compared food to fuel, blood to steam, the pulse to a steam gauge, the heart to an engine, and waste to ash. It was the ash that seemed to fascinate him most, though. He advocated teaching children to examine their own waste, claiming if they were healthy it wouldn't smell and would have no evidence of bacteria.

Nine years after this cartoon ran, Fletcher died of bronchitis, or as he might see it a bad air filter. By that time calorie counting had already started replacing Fletcherizing. I never thought I'd be glad to count calories.

The Funnies - That Old Frazzled Sofa that Wrecked a Home (1909)

World War I - The Outbreak of War

Punch Magazine, August 1914

The last we touched base with Austria-Hungary and their German allies, they'd sent an ultimatum to Serbia demanding untenable changes be made to avoid dire consequences. Well, it's probably not surprising that the Serbs didn't come through, they never were intended to and the Austria-Hungarian gesture was only meant to paper over the coming war. So, on July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia which prompted Russia to mobilize her troops in preparation to enter the war on the Serbian behalf.

On July 31, Germany sent a warning to the Russians, telling them to stop their troop mobilization mobilization and, after being refused, she plunged headlong into war. The Germans declared war on Russia on August 1, on France on the third, and on Belgium on the fourth. The same day as declaring war on Belgium, Germany executed a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan, a proto-blitz into France through Belgium which intended to encircle the French army on the German boarder and take France out of the conflict quickly. The effort stalled at the Belgian city of Liege where German general Karl von Bulow encountered unexpected resistance. Belgium had been guaranteed independence and neutrality under the 1839 Treaty of London, the violation of which brought Britain into the war.

France counterpunched on August 7th, the VII Corps attacked Alsace in an attempt to capture Mulhouse and Colmar with a second offensive taking place on August 14 when the 1st and 2nd Army attacked toward Sarrenbourg-Morhange and Lorraine. The Germans withdrew, inflicting losses on the French, and the bloody oscillation that would be the hallmark of World War I already was set in motion.