Judge, 1896-11-07 · page 7 of 16
Judge — November 7, 1896 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from Judge magazine contains several satirical pieces mocking middle-class American life, primarily targeting Brooklyn residents. **"The Brooklyn Man's Pet Tree"** is the main feature—a lengthy essay with illustrations satirizing Brooklynites' obsessive care for the single, sickly tree in front of their homes. The author describes residents treating their trees like invalids: buying patent medicines for them, having hired girls hold parasols, losing sleep over their welfare. One anecdote describes neighbors traumatized after a boy chases a kitten up their tree, with the gentleman darkly hinting the kitten should have drowned—yet everyone remains vigilant it won't return. The satire targets both the neurotic over-attachment of Brooklyn homeowners and the class pretensions implied by such fussy, excessive concern for a decorative tree. The shorter jokes on the page mock divorce law, farming logic, and hypochondria—typical Judge fare of lightweight social commentary aimed at recognizable urban and rural stereotypes of the era.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
uae A FAILURE. 4¢THEN Susie's T marriage was a failure?” “Yes; she couldn't get a di- vorce.”” HOW TRUE. HAT is it that : . : a farmer can Np Mldbears « raise and always tise) Ali be sure to have a ONE-SIDED REASONING. crop? Farater—'* Gosh darn yer ol’ mulish soul! yer makin’ a reg’lar jackass A chicken, of yerself.” Stennhi my THE BROOKLYN MAN’S PET TREE. HAVE often been keenly struck by the solicitous care which a Brooklynite lavishes upon the solitary, long-suffering tree which stands despondently before ninety-nine out of one hundred of the real Brooklyn homes, with a coat of sorry, pale, yellowish-white whitewash upon its nether limbs and a drabbled cotton-batting ballet-skirt about its slender, emaciated trunk, -I do not think persons would say so many. thoughtless, unkind things about Brook- lynites if they would go among them and study their inmost lives as I have. Tam acquainted with a Brooklynite who, whenever he gets a new, expensive patent medicine for his children, never fails to buy some of it also for his pet tree; and he is always particularly on the lookout, when he is riding in the trolley-cars, for the advertisement of any new malaria-cure highly recommended by leading actresses and pugilists; for he is greatly worried over the way the smaller branches and leaves of his pet tremble and quiver whenever the wind is the least off the sea. Another Brooklyn friend has had a pet infant tree which has been a great invalid, and over which he has worried a great deal. He assures me that the only way he ever succeeded in carrying it through the hot weather of the past summer was by having the hired girl hold a parasol over it during the sunny part of the day and fan it very gently. A third Brooklyn friend and his wife have a pet tree in front of their place which is large and healthy-looking to the cas- ual observer, yet neither of its proud possessors has slept a whole for the past month owing to their anxiety about it, and they are daily watch- ing it from hour to hour, prepared for the worst. They tell me that, as they sat on the front stoop si- lently admiring their pet one afternoon, a thought- less boy chased a small stray kitten up it, while they were powerless to in- terfere from their horror at hearing the kitten’s cruel claws entering its bark. This tree is partic- ularly dear to them, the gentleman having nearly wrecked his constitution smoking gift-cigars under it evenings for the past fifteen summers to relieve it of army-worms and -ARONY, . WHAT SHE THOUGHT OF IT. Sue— Horrors! what a fright I look! I'll resign from the foot-ball club at once.” mosquitoes. My fofend hurried and, getting a ladder, took the offending kitten down with trembling hands as soon as possible, when a sympathizing neighbor carried it far away to Jamaica. On returning that gentleman hinted darkly about the outgoing tide car- rying a suicide kitten off to sea, with a brickbat charm tied to its necklace of string; but, nevertheless, there is not a dweller on that block who does not go about with a nervous, haunted look, or who is not sitting up uneasily un- til the scandalously late hour—for a Brooklynite— of half-past nine o'clock, nights, watching his or her pet tree, fearful, in the knowledge of a cat's pe- culiar ability to return to its old haunts, lest at any unguarded moment. the kitten should reappear. coat Sucve SO FAR AS HE KNEW. 66 ARE you well?” A “T believe so, yet I can’t say positively; I haven't had time to look up the new diseases in to-day’s paper.” HER IMPRESSION. seDAPA,” whispered Edith as the prima- donna paused for breath, “all her sing is of the Ile engaged passage on this ship because they set such a good table. whistly kind, isn’t it?” A CHAIN OF FAMILIAR FACES WHEN LIFE IS SLOWLY EBBING AWAY.