One of the minor inconveniences of age is that, after one has passed the two-century mark or so, one finds oneself laughing at things and unable to explain to the younger folks why they were funny. One even finds it difficult to predict whether anyone else will see the joke, because it is not easy to tell how much of the history one lived through is still in current memory.

Dr. Boli was browsing through the digital collections at the Library of Congress, and he found the use of this picture to illustrate this collection very funny. But he was not sure that anyone else around him would see the joke. Is this funny to anyone else?