Judge, 1894-03-03 · page 5 of 16
Judge — March 3, 1894 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several comic vignettes satirizing turn-of-the-century social pretension and marital dynamics: **"Her Sweet Simplicity"**: A country schoolteacher marries a man of wealth and status, then anxiously abandons her natural manner trying to impress society. The humor lies in her earnest but misguided efforts—she even has her husband's ancestral portrait (a Van Dyck) moved upstairs because she found cracks in it, not realizing it's valuable precisely *because* it's old. **Other sketches** mock: - A boxer claiming overtraining caused his downfall (implying he's actually failed at boxing) - Naval incompetence (a "promotion" for hitting a church steeple) - Social hypocrisy about physical propriety - A proposal misunderstanding on ice The satire targets Victorian/Edwardian anxieties about class mobility, respectability, and the gap between genuine character and performed sophistication. The simple country woman's earnestness makes her paradoxically *less* refined than she was before.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE HER SWEET SIM- PLICITY. SHE was a dear, sweet little woman with a wonderful charm of man- ner, and as the graduate of an inland seminary and the teacher in a country school was really a mar- vel. But she sought to lay aside her sweet simplicity when she met and wed- ded aman of station, and in the endeavor to learn the ways of the world in her great city home often gave people a wrong im- pression. Her one wish was never to offend her hus- band, his friends or the 4 world, and the little wo- HOW HE CAME TO BE SO. man was frequently at Ruccep Ricos—" Yes'm; I allus use ter stan’ at de head o° Bs me class when I was a young feller.” her wits’ end. One day Mrs. WELLMENT (handing him a quarter)—" Poor man! her husband, on returning What caused your downfall?” homatncied thatyan vane _ RucceD Riccs—" Overtrainin’, mum. Me reg'lar fightin’ cestral portrait (of which he was very proud, it being by Van Dyck) had been removed YSighe was a hander aul forty. tried ter git con fer a hone from its regular place. He glanced at his wife with troubled face and she instantly _stertushun.” erence oe Ok GOOD MARKSMANSHIP. “Yes, dear,” she answered, nod- ding briskly; “I had it taken up-stairs. [¥ ADMIRAL MELLO’ Navy. Men of course don't understand such $ ; “What was Pedro promoted things, but now you have me to look XX for?" after you and there is no excuse. Do “Why, man, he hit a church- you know,Tom, that actually there were steeple in Rio once out of thirty-seven three cracks in it, the paint was being cannon-shots.” rubbed off in places, and you must have been awfully swindled, for I ex- AN OPINION. amined it and found that it had been | LIKE to skate, 1 ike to swim; painted on nothing but wood.” Each in its way is simply grand, Bul don’t like to go to skate DIDN’T WANT TO FORGET. And be obliged to swim to land. Trivvet—"1 think my uncle Pe- ters is the most methodical man I THEY THOUGHT ALIKE. Botn or THEM—" What funny things we see!" AN ELABORATE EXPLANA- TION. Hester—*You prudish! Why, 1 saw Dick Hastings sit for an hour with his arm about you last night."* * Well?” “Before he started for Chicago last summer he made a mem- orandum of the things he intended to do, and he began the list with‘ See the exposition.’ Daisy—" Oh, I permitted that be- cause he acted as if he was going to propose, and when he didn’t I thought “Last noight Oi hur-rd me daughter say thot oice-crame kem in it would be unmaidenly to show pique bricks, but divil a bit hov Oi found in this poile this mar-rnin’.”” over it.” and after the proposal on the ice, MORE ATTACHMENT THAN HIE KNEW OF. \ comicbooks.com i}