Judge, 1893-12-09 · page 17 of 52
Judge — December 9, 1893 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous instructional comic mocking barber shop practices of the era. Rather than offering genuine customer service advice, it presents an absurdly rough, aggressive approach to barbering as if it were standard procedure. The eight panels depict increasingly ridiculous and painful "techniques": lowering the chair suddenly to shock customers, forcing soap into mouths, twisting heads violently, poking eyes, and nearly suffocating clients with towels. The final panel shows the barber claiming the mistreated customer looks "like a different man." The satire targets barbers' actual cavalier treatment of customers—suggesting they were often careless, rough, and dismissive. By presenting this brutish behavior as official "hints," Judge magazine ridicules both barbering standards and customers who tolerated such treatment. The joke relies on readers recognizing these exaggerated actions as distortions of genuine complaints about barber shop conduct.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The man who goes to the chair should be told his hair wants trimming. If it's only a shave lower the chair with a bang; a sudden shock will not hurt the man, even if he is suffering with heart- disease, Catch him by the nose and apply the lather ; a little taste of soap will not poison him, Now let him rest while you strop your razor, Then grab him by the chin and pleasantly remark on the beauty of the weather. be i Spread your hand over his face and twist his head around and shave his neck. Now is the time to tell him he ought to have a hair-cut and shampoo, | Slap him on the cheek, poke: him in the eye, pull his nose, ‘and almost smother him with a towel. And when you get through with him tell him he looks like a different man, Next! HINTS TO BARBERS,