Shocking

Believe it or not, the picture here was part of a series from Austria, produced in the 1930s, warning of the dangers of electrocution. Not sure that this is immediately obvious from the drawing, nor indeed that the risk of getting zapped from a dodgy lamp via a cow is actually that high, though I can accept that in pre-WWII Austria this might have had a slightly higher chance of occurring than would be the case today. (It did though seem to require an odd coincidence of events to occur, from said faulty lamp going live, through to the cow having it's tail wrapped round the lamp casing and requiring a bare-footed milking maid to boot, err, or rather not be booted.)

Cautious lot those Austrians, as the other one shown above indicates. Is no one safe, not even a bloke with two bedside lamps and a grasping fixation??

(Thanks to Bre Pettis for making these available via Flickr here.)