Judge, 1888-12 · page 11 of 51
Judge — December 1888 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Judge* magazine contains multiple satirical vignettes mocking holiday social pretense and marital dynamics: **Main Story**: "I-Have-Been-to-the-Lodge" hosts an elaborate Christmas dinner. A drunk caller's phone message causes all invited guests to fabricate excuses and cancel, leaving the host furious—the joke being that people eagerly abandon social obligations despite elaborate preparation. **"The Dinner and the Diner"**: Working-class characters discuss whether restaurants profit from storing leftover turkeys year-round—satirizing cheap Christmas dining and commercial greed. **"He Was Surprised"**: A wife buys her husband a meerschaum pipe from a discount bin for 25 cents, naively expecting him to be delighted—mocking both cheap gift-giving and marital obliviousness. **"Well Qualified"**: A job applicant claims experience writing "negro-minstrel jokes"; the editor hires him to write Christmas stories—darkly satirizing racist entertainment's acceptability and its casual conflation with holiday content. **Bottom cartoon**: A couple's marital coldness stems from the wife introducing the husband to Mrs. Ackles—suggesting petty jealousy and social resentment. The overall theme: Christmas reveals hypocrisy, mercenary motives, and relationship dysfunction beneath polite society.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
CHRISTMAS JUDGE room presented special devices to please. An army of Fibs, who had not yet proved themselves fit to rise above a menial position, stood ready at gate, in hall and at all necessary points to serve the expected guests. The tinkle of a telephone bell was heard in the host's library, and the message was for him, It was an imperative message, though out of season. I-Have-Been-to-the-Lodge was seldom called out on business before midnight or one o'clock A. M., and here was a man, at eight o'clock in the evening, who said he must come. The fellow was evidently drunk. Before I-Have-Been-to-the-Lodge could slip on his overcoat the mansion was fairly deluged with telephone and other messages of excuse from invited guests. Everyone pleaded an unexpected and obligatory engagement and asked to be excused. All this preparation was wasted. The party was broken up be- fore it had gathered. I- Have -Been - to-the-Lodge, impatient and angry, cried first for his wife, then for his children, and finally for his servants after a vain search for his overshoes. All had disappeared. And as he slammed the front door and rushed out upon his errand he muttered: “What a shame it is that a Lie never can enjoy a hol J. A. WALDRON. AND THE DINER. uggling with his Christmas dinner in a cheap ! are the storage charges on turkeys very THE DINNER Starvely (who i Watte misther ?” Starvely profit on a tw last Christmas,” orage! Phwat would yez be afther gettin’ at, O, I was only wondering if you could really make any ty-five cent dinner after keeping the fowls over from HE WAS SURPRISED. “Tboughta lovely meerschaum pipe for my husband,” said a young wife to her mother. “I picked it up on the bargain counter of a dry- goods house, and all it cost was 25 cents. Won't he be surprised?” Flowers and young hearts. Ab, Cupid's darts Are oft m * She smiles and s Her dreamy ey On nothing bent. But what is this? A sudden bliss Her face assumes: A suitor old With bags of gold The place illumes, This world-worn wretch, Can she but fetch, Those bags embrace— Well lost were youth, Faith, love, and truth, In Such a race. ‘Tis hers, the prize! Abroad she fli To gaily roam; While in amaze An old man pays The bills at home. WELL QUALIFIED. “ What kind of work can you do?” paper. I've been writing negro-minstrel jokes,” was the reply. “You're just the man we want,” returned the editor in great glee. “We need some one to work up several Christmas stories.” ked the editor of a religious ina aM ea if s HH DURING THEIR FIRST TIFF. * It seems to me that from the cool bow you just gave Mrs. Ackles you forget that she introduced us when we first met.” “That's the special reason why I bowed so coolly.” comicbooks.com