Judge, 1884-05-31 · page 5 of 16
Judge — May 31, 1884 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of satirical social commentary: **"What's This?"** mocks social etiquette by advising guests to endure boring dinner parties—professionals entertainers have apparently left, so hosts must now suffer through awkward evenings. The satire targets rigid Victorian social conventions requiring polite attendance regardless of enjoyment. **"A Blast From the Country"** presents a rural visitor's scathing critique of New York City. He contrasts urban chaos—crowded, noisy, dirty—with rural beauty, lamenting that rational people choose city life. However, he admits New York does produce "thorough-bred girls" among the masses of unattractive women. The satire mocks both urban overcrowding and provincial snobbery. **The illustrated section on fashion and dogs** satirizes changing style conventions, particularly women's posture (chin up, eyelids lowered) and pet preferences shifting from one breed to another. It suggests fashionable society mindlessly follows trends without substance. Overall, the page satirizes American social pretension, urban excess, and the tyranny of fashion among the upper classes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WHAT'S THIS? Naturally this retreat of their intended victims, will cause discomfiture among the ladies; ' professional laughers, and jokers must now circulate freely in the parlor. ‘Their efforts to amuse should be met heartily with yawns, hould remain as late as tion of some unforeseen 1 salivenme ent. When weari- ness, disappointment, and vexations have added their last drops to the cup of enjoy- ment, it will be time to leay Assure your hostess that you have spent a most delight- ful evening. A Blast From the Country. A RUSTIC MAKES A PEW REMARKS ON GIRLS AND | LANG I visit New York two or three times a year for the purpose of stirring my pulse and accelerating my liver by the roar and racket of the ct ‘The mass of juirming, wriggling, and fighting insects and reptiles struggling for existence here is a repulsive subject for con- templation, and from year to year it proms worse. rational human beings should deliberat hoose to spend their days jumping on one another in the row of down town business in a boiler factory noise, and to spend their nights at the s\ ‘end of a ten story fire-escape into which they are shot by a greasy smelling catapult, is more than I can imagine, coming as I do, fresh as a bob-o-link from cowslip banks and daisy pied meadows. But any muck bed grows some sweet flow- ers and so does New York, and these same are the few thorough-bred girls that a dis- criminating eye can pick out from the mass of pudgy, ‘moon-faced, sucker-mouthed things one meets in a promenade up the avenue. _THE JUDGE. The change of styl expression and canine attendance tertaining subject of philosophic contempla- tion, ‘The present conventionalism seems to be English, and on the whole it is the best yet. It consists of atall, slender, much becorseted figure, nose in air, and elbows well trussed behind. At each step the chin goes up slightly and the eyelids slide down ditto, has set this style, and it ‘The Langtry 1) uroo,” or the iit now obsolete in the best Wi . he favorite “purp,” which a perverted ; maternal instinct craves, has changed from black -and-tan to poodle, from poodle te | from skye to Gordon setter, and lastl attendant to severe and noble virtue, a big | comicbooks.com