Judge, 1891-02-07 · page 12 of 18
Judge — February 7, 1891 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **product advertisement**, not political satire. It promotes Williams' Shaving Soap to barbers and their customers during an era of widespread concern about hygiene and contagious disease. The illustrated scene depicts alarmed barbershop customers questioning whether the barber uses Williams' soap, with the barber reassuring them he does. The central pitch exploits **genuine health anxieties**: the text warns that cheap imitations cause serious skin diseases like barber's itch, eczema, and scrofula—conditions actually common in early barbershops due to unsanitary practices. A quoted physician's testimony (likely genuine or plausible-sounding) validates fears about contaminated cheap soaps. The ad emphasizes Williams' 50-year reputation and purity, positioning premium soap as essential health protection. This reflects turn-of-the-century advertising strategy: manufacturing consumer anxiety about disease and safety to drive brand loyalty. The message is essentially: don't risk your health on cheap imitations—demand the trusted, pure product.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ask Your BARBER If he USES ILLIAMS’ SHAVING Soap. IT PREVENTS AND CURES. AtarmeD Customers—“' dre vou using the Best? Are You using WILLIAMS’ Shaving. Soop? “Liat. sat otal cut afford to run any risks.” Barser—‘*Don't be alarmed, gentlemen ; You can trust me to look out for your comfort and safely. WILLIAMS! Soop by far the purest and best” 1 use nothing but WILLIAMS’. My motto is always—' the Best is the cheapest! Lam more particular about the soap I use than anything else, and consider ASK— Demand — fasist— that your Barber use WILLIAMS!’ Shaving Soap. Your Sarety requires it, and upon it depends your comfort while deing shaved. You cannot afford to allow the use of impure Soap upon the delicate, sensitive skin of your face—so subject to conta- gious diseases—with which nearly all of the cheap imitations of WILLIAMS’ famous soap abound. READ THIS: One of the best known physicians in Chicago writes as follows : “7 want to warn all barbers against buying the so-called ‘cheap’ soaps which are now being offered and sold by many dealers. Within the last month I have had seven men come to me to be cured whose faces had been poisoned in our barber-shops. 1 have analyzed the soap used, and find it to contain matter that never ought fo be put on the face of any human being. It y short of acrime for dealers to sell such soaps, which they do, simply to make more money out of the barbers than they can make by selling a first-class article.” is nothis OUR ly SAFETY is at stake ! BARBERS’ ITCH, ECZEMA, SCROFULA in its various distress- ing forms—these and many other dis- gusting, disfiguring skin diseases are contracted through the medium of cheap, impure Soaps. When the face is most sensitive (after | shaving) it is most liable to suffer from this cause. It behooves you then to know what your Barber is using. Is it pure? Is it made by a house with a long established reputation? WILLIAMS’ SHAVING SOAP has enjoyed the confidence of the Amer- ican people, as well as of foreign nations —for half a HUNDRED YEARS. THE J. B. WILLIAMS, Co. have a reputation equaled by no manu- | facturer of Shaving Soaps in the world. -| IF YOu allow your Barber to use any Shaving Soap except WILLIAMS’, then you are to blame, and you subject yourself to all the liability of contagion and the attendant disfigurements. Then ASK YOUR BARBER what he uses. Look at his Soap and see that it bears our name—like this: ‘This, shows a regular cake (full sie) of WILLIAMS' famous BARBE! BEWARE OF IMITATIONS! RS* BAR SOAP. comicbooks.com