Judge, 1887-09-10 · page 6 of 16
Judge — September 10, 1887 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces lampooning American upper-class life circa the Gilded Age. **"Patent Misery"** is a lengthy poem mockingly describing the horrors of fever and chills—likely malaria or similar illness—with grotesque medical detail. It's social commentary wrapped in dark humor about disease's indignity. **"A Lively Vacation"** jokes about two leisure-class problems: Mr. Pinks is an "Anglomaniac" (absurdly imitating British manners), while Cobwigger's country vacation was ruined by mosquitoes and bedbugs—a jab at the gap between romantic pastoral ideals and rural reality. **"A Newport Casino Whispering"** satirizes wealthy Newport society, where a man brags about courting the "Moreton girls" while casually mentioning losing money ("a cool thousand") at Monte Carlo—the punchline being that wealth drains away as easily as it appears. The cartoons mock affluent pretension, health anxieties, and the leisure class's disconnection from reality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
With fine combs and h rakes contrived 80 nothing could escape ; Might sift the whole creation in rearch of tribulation very trouble found minutely ape: Rut in the peer. ‘ bitter woes and aggravat- ing ills find so bad a pairas fever and the chills. They shake you all to pieces, they furrow you with creases, They turn you just as yellow as a candle- stick of brass: won to raving, they thin you to Until you east no shadow or reflection in the glass ; Your heart and gizeard rattle like dry peas within a pod, Your brains shrink up and clatter like coal lumps within a hod. Your tongue keeps up its chatter, your teeth a tattoo clatter, And dancing to their music up your spine ra i ce through from skin bi ¢ mosquitos with the best chilled iron bills : Like fifty million zeros darting through you to and fro, Or frost elves sticking you choke full of skewers tipped with snow. Then comes swift transformation, until the whole creation Would seem to be a furnace roaring fierc tr h red heats : Hot needles through you rushing, hot ro Hot pincers grasping at your soul and ns Hot trimstoned fames and burning gaa the sir which you reepire, Your brain's a workshop full of wheels revolving in blue fire, And then comes convalescence, your body but an essence Of shadows and of weakness ggravation curled : A spectre of dejection, of thrice condensed objection, Your soul and body wilted like mosquito netting furled. pmfort in g ill no misery distills So full of agony run mad, of incandescent frills, So perfect in completeness as the real old fashioned chills, 1. ePeAR soxes, A’LIVELY VACATION. stone: weeanae: Kate—" What an anglomaniac you are, Mr. Pinks."* X —Ah—ya-as—to be sure. Ye know, an easy thing that, to become an anglo- maniac in thew daya le Kate ex Upremime 40 expecially where one ina maniac to begin with” ** How did you enjoy your trip to the country asked Merritt. 4 lied Cobwigger. ‘The mosquitoes used to sting so at night that I had to put my head under the bedelothes, and then the bugs used to bite so that I had to uncover it again. Mie Kino ‘A NEWPORT CASINO WHISPERING. wincere ‘the Moreton girls, to whom he has rd ing yer of Fe aN erp eee tea fe ia’ mene Tey Walfoer ten mine of ther ekty Tepoy (ruefully) Ya-as; excepting that at Monte Carlo I dwopped’a cool thousand, and at Newport the cool thousand, generwally speaking, dwops me.” comicbooks.com