Judge, 1883-07-28 · page 14 of 16
Judge — July 28, 1883 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertisements** with one satirical story, "A Mean Trick," in the center column. ## The Satire The story mocks a newlywed couple's cruelty toward hotel staff. A man and woman, likely from Buffalo, register at a hotel and deliberately torment the servants—refusing to call them properly, making excessive demands, deliberately dropping things to watch servants scramble. The satire targets the **newly wealthy or socially ambitious** who use their temporary power over working-class hotel employees to feel superior and demonstrate status through rudeness. The joke's point: such behavior reveals the perpetrators as vulgar and small-minded. The punchline involves the man wearing a straw hat "smashed down and bent to such a shape" that guests assume he'd suffered an accident the previous night—suggesting his comeuppance or public embarrassment. ## Context for Modern Readers This reflects Gilded Age anxieties about **new money and class performance**. Hotels were theaters of social climbing, and mistreatment of servants was apparently common enough to warrant satirical commentary. Judge assumes readers will recognize and condemn such rudeness as marking one as genuinely lower-class despite wealth.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JOHN I - DAVIDS & CONS CROWN BRAND WRITING INKS AND MUCILAGE. MUSICAL NOVELTIES. 31 BROADWAY Betwe abet St ILLUSTRATED CATAL: FIUEE ON APPLICATION THE MECHANICAL ‘0! SUINETTE COMPANY. SF en Gen lAgen 407 Brosamoy NY.City THE COLLENDER SILUARD AND POOL TABLES. BEFORE — AND — AFTER Blectrie Appliances are sect on 30 Days! Trial. x MEN ONLY, YOUNG OR OLD THE JUDGE. A MEAN TRICK. A MAN who probably hailed 1a powerful tr had not » “them and y stay hi rea day or tw my hotel, in there!” you 1 want to say a werd to wan't omy he! ties, or feeding let his in a stow, arm drop from his painful manner, and “Phe first time you eall wches and nit you thousand darl non- of letter car- arks that it where atoand hh funny I mean that t than those M., he py, his company wear his t nt tosuch a ulies wear theirs, whe think he had been the straw ha would night been con able talk alty on barbed wire.” feel mi lately All, we nty une “Lowe my Restoration to Health and Beauty lo the CUTICURA ) REMEDIES." " Teatimonial of « Bow "ou lady ELECTRIC STEREOPTICON ADVERTISING CO 185 FIFTH AVEKUE. «Liberal Terms for Summer Resorts, excursion Routes, ete, The best and most Central Spot in the ‘City. IAKOML & HART, Proprietors, - BEHNING FIRST CLASS ot | Grand Square é& Upright | a PIANOS. Warerooms : Factory, N. Fe 15 E. 14th St. & 129 E. 126th St. corner 121th at. and Or. E. C. West's Nerve and arin Treatment, comicbooks.com