Judge, 1891-07-25 · page 3 of 20
Judge — July 25, 1891 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page 251 This page contains three satirical pieces mocking wealth inequality and professional pretense during the Gilded Age. **"A Graduate's Impending Victory"** depicts a wealthy man with a cane negotiating with a young woman, suggesting he'll buy her as a wife—a critique of marriage as financial transaction among the rich. **"Star-Chamber Killing"** argues that private punishment by the wealthy mirrors historical tyranny. It attacks law-makers who escape public accountability, contrasting this with ordinary people's lack of privacy protections. **"A Fashion Note"** and **"Professional to the Last"** mock aristocratic pretension through brief vignettes showing the wealthy behaving absurdly while maintaining false dignity. The overarching theme: the wealthy operate by different rules, evading justice while ordinary people suffer scrutiny—a common Progressive Era complaint about plutocracy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IMPENDING VICTORY. é MAN WITH CANE—"* She would flirt with thee, Augustus, Take to thyself that side-glance and proceed to capture.” 2 STALWART YOUTH —"' Bah, mine uncle—bah !" MAN WITH CANE —"' They do say that she is worth a million, and a widow withal.” STALWART YOUTH —"* Look you, old man, at the spooning couple beyond. Wouldst have thy nephew lower himself to that tottering idiocy? Let'me alone!” MAN wirit cane —Bethink thee, youth, of the cost to me of the college sheepskin thou carriest in thy upper garment. We need money. ‘Thou canst not earn it, and I have been sickened to my soul in Wall street.” STALWART YOUTH —"‘Oh, persistent Shylock !’ Would that I might sell a boating or a foot-race victory for bread, but there be none to buy. A million, say you?” MAN WITH CANE —"' Verily they do say she hath two of them, much of the lucre in government bonds.” STALWART YOUTH —"* Now by heaven this is business! I will reward that sidewise smile and draw it to the front so it shall illuminate the entire countenance. Business! The reward of four years’ studious athletics! I'll marry her though Vesuvius gape and she have five children and the temper of a nine-lived cat.” STAR-CHAMBER KILLING. T TOOK a great many years to break up that supposed superiority of law-makers and professional moralists which resulted in private tribunals and private punishment. The thumb-screw and the rack naturally attended it, and in the name of law and the protection of privacy it was guilty of outrage. It is too late at this period to revive it. ‘The law-maker is the.servant, not the master, of the people. He must enact nothing which the people are not fairly privileged to see and criticise. A decent respect for public opinion ought to teach him that the strictly private execution, with the facts regarding it forbidden in ee the newspapers, is as much tyranny and censorship as anything in the power and meanness of the govern- Mr. Charlie Shortieigh is very much sack ment of Russia. Electrocution is a success, We learn ‘that though the law-maker has forbidden us to crowiled with social eneagements, “fie re Know it, But down with that portion of the electrocution law which ordains that the public shall not cently went to three balls in one evening. have the information which belongs to it as a natural right and as a matter of self-protection. nS PROFESSIONAL TO THE LAST. Tracewus (stranded) —“* Prithee, good dame, I would beg a little nour- ment at thy indulgent hands. Three whole days have I trod yon stretch of , and Tam grievous hungry.” 1,;, GOOD DAME —"' Um—wa-al, there's that there wood:pile. Ef you saw that * ‘gin dinner-time comes I'll feed you,” TRAcEDIS (ten minutes later)—""A horse! a, horse! My ‘kingdom for se |" comicbooks.com