Judge, 1889-12-21 · page 7 of 18
Judge — December 21, 1889 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains humorous travel letters and illustrations typical of Judge's satirical style. The main content is a letter from "Zim," a correspondent describing a chaotic journey across America to Japan via Dago Beach, California. The humor relies on exaggerated mishaps—losing his hat to a Chicago world's fair representative, getting cheated at cards by clothing salesmen, nearly falling from a train while dreaming, and hiring a guide who uses his valuable sketch as a rheumatism remedy. The sidebar "Pastor's Appeal" satirizes clergy who receive excessive Christmas gifts they don't need—sixteen pairs of slippers, twenty-one watch-cases, thirty-five pen-wipers—while their own single watch remains broken. This gentle satire criticizes the culture of gift-giving excess. A brief "Cupid(p)ity" joke mocks modern women's attitudes toward marriage, suggesting a woman would reject a wealthy man if his marriage proposal lacked a pre-arranged divorce clause—commentary on rising divorce rates and changing marriage attitudes in the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE 175 THE PASTOR'S APPEAL. HAVE sisteen pairs of slippers, And they're all of them too small; T own twenty-one watch-cases, And they're mostly on the wall ; I have thiny-five penwipers In my desk quite safely stored ; So I modestly request you, When you add unto my hoard Of sweet Christmas gifts and wishes, To recall these facts are so; And I'd bumbly like to mention T've one watch, which doesn’t go. — UNDER THE MANACEMENT oF JUAGe: sear = S ——— DAGO BEACH, CALIFORNIA, JUDGE, New York.—Before I say anything for publication please have a hat meet me at Fustyana. I lent mine to a representative of the Chicago world’s fair on the train to take up a collection in and have been bare-headed ever since. Anything but an Evening Sun hat will answer, as the Japanese are not too particular. Had a delightful trip from Hoboken with a party of clothing drummers who were carefully and broadly bound to reach Omaha with all my spare change, That marked deck that was handed to me at the business-office just before I kissed the editor good-bye saved all, and I staked up enough from the crowd to buy a bead-trimmed hunting-shirt in which to cross Wyoming. You will agree with me that this was fortu- nate, for I walked off the rear of the train at Laramie city in the midst of a dream that I was in a bowling-alley and had caught the pin-boy cheating, and found the garment very comfortable in my subsequent ride by rail from Lara- mie to Rawlins—a ride that I shall never forget. While bathing my bruised head with liquor—‘ten-day elixir” | think they called it—a committee of citizens said they had never seen whisky insulted so, and they insisted on helping me along on my journey in a manner which was not contem- plated when we made up reaches and dates at the office. I caught my original train at Rawlins, so you can realize that I Blyed across Wyoming intensely. I took a douche or a debouch or something like that at Granite point, Nevada, and being decoyed by the name, ran down to Stillwater, Write Mr. Harrison and have the name of that place changed at once. It’s the liveliest water you ever saw, and sugar and lemon can no more kill it than care can kill a civil-service commissioner. I made a careful sketch of Lone peak from the summit, but my Indian guide mistook it for something and the last I saw of it Bean-legs, his squaw, was wear- ing the canvas for a rheumatism-preventer. I met a man at Carson city who wanted me to ask you if you remember lending him twenty-five dollars in the summer of ‘sixty-two. I told him it was just a waste of paper, as I knew he must be mistaken, and suggested that it might have been the major instead of the JUDGE. Arrived at Dago beach ten minutes ahead of schedule time and have just packed my things on top of my head, ready to swim out and inter- cept the coolie-ship that is to take me to Japan, This is a pretty place, and the warm soft air of the Pacific, the overburdened orange- trees, and the world-famous flea-hippodrome onthe sands make me loath to leave it; but I hear the loud pigeon-English halloo of the out- bound skippers (I'm not referring to fleas now) and with a wave of the hand that must last you till I begin to take my Japanease at Fustyama, I am Yours invariably, “A party of clothing drummers,” zim, A CASE OF CUPID(P)ITY. Miss Lakestreete— Refused him! Why, I thought he owned the largest abattoir in the city.” _ Miss Moderne —" He does; but he actually offered me a marriage certificate without a single divorce-coupon attached, and I knew I could never be happy with one whose ideas were so old-styled and conservative.” ., [7 HAS been said that an egg is equivalent to a pound of steak in nourish- ment. In other words, we might say ux auf is as good as a feast. ALL SECURE, COLTURRY up, Mr. Mulli- gan! Your house is . on fire and a-burning up.” “1 know better, you rascal! You can’t fool me. The door is locked and Oi hov the kay in me pock HOW HE LIKED IT. **DLEASE buttcr my bread, mamma; I don’t like it raw,” said little Boy Blue, whose adjectives are always used with a whole-souled disregard for conventionality. “1 made a careful sketch of Lone peak.” comicbooks.com