Judge — December 18, 1897 — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Christmas Judge. A PAIR OF BOOTS, 7 ONLY a pair of small boots—children’s boots—very ordinary articles, with red-leather facings upon the tops and shin- ing brass-plates upon the toes—such as can be bought at any bargain sale for ninety-eight cents and at any other time for seventy-five—run down at the heels, one strap broken and two missing, ahd several self-assertive nails pretruding through the soles—for what boy's boots are com- plete without a purgatory or two stick- ing up inside of them ?—very ordinary articles, you will admit,and not calculated to inspire ses ment: and yet a woman was weeping over them on Christ- mas eve, and I will tell you why. They had been worn by her boy. How well she remembered his childish pleasure upon receiving them! How careful he had promised to be with them and had been for the first two days—his uncontrollable grief when one of the straps came out by the roots the first time he pulled them on —how he had even taken the precious gift to bed with him nights and faiten asleep with the beloved boots pressed close to his little bosom. Then she thought of the catastrophe, the reckless skaters, the treacherous ice, the crack, the splash, the cry for aid, and her boy brought home to her all wet and stiff, with the frozen water still upon him. She remem- bered the puddle he had made on the kitchen floor when they laid him down and he began to thaw out. She remem- bered the neighbors crowding in to offer their kindly services—relatives trying to console where there could be no consola- tion, Her mother-feelings overcame her. She dipped her hand into the pan of hot lard with which she was greasing the boots, and, shaking an unctuous fore- finger at the owner of those articles, who sat beside the stove, wrapped in a com- forter and sipping hot gruel, she cried, “Jimmy, ye divil, if yez break’ t'roo de DOUBLY SURE. oice wid dese boots on ag’in Oi'll break Mus. Nuwiywep—" Where have you got my yer back !" letter to mamma ?* ight in my pocket, love.” WOULD BE OF LITTLE VALUE. mail it: for T have told her not to come unt next ae a month, and if she doesn't get it she will come to- Beth (ooticing the rooster’s spurs)— -onth. : Mamma, are all roosters born with tooth- Mr. NewLywep—** Hum it in my hand, so as to make sure.” guess I'll carry STRATEGY, Comrmany 1007 BY THE JeOGE PUBLSKING COMPANY OF yom MR. GOTROX'S OBJECTIONS. ++ ARE these the only specimens of jac boxes you have in stock?” said Mr. Gotrox testily. “I wanted to get a couple of them for my grandchildren, but I don’t like these types at all. Why, that one on the left, there, is a socialist, the middle one is a populist, and the one on the right is a rabid, bomb-throwing an- archist, or I'll eat my hat !" " Yes, sir,” said the dealer gently, “ they do look something like that, but if they didn’t they wouldn't be jack-in-boxes. We try to make them as hideous as possible, you know.” "Oh, you do, eh?” cried Mr.Gotrox. “ You want to flaunt vice and crime and social disor- der before the pure, young imaginations of my grandchildren, do you? And you have the im- pudence to acknowledge it, have you ?” * But, sir,” interposed the toy-dealer pacific- ally, “these horrid duplicates of socialistic, pop- ulistic and anarchistic features will convulse your dear little grandchildren with affright and horror, and fill them with a natural and lasting aversion to all such forms of human degeneracy.” “Fill them with mush!” shouted Mr. Got- rox, growing purple in the face with rage. “ My young grandchildren think a deuced sight more of their jack-in-boxes than they do of me, and love them better than they do their grandmother. No wonder our daughters elope with coachmen and our sons with bar-maids! No wonder our college presidents advocate free silver, free love and free pocket-books! There should be a law against it, sir, there should be a law against it; and jack-in-boxes should only he made to repre- sent capitalists and judges and statesmen and foreign noblemen! Good-day to you, sir; good- day to you.” Tramr—" It’s jes’ my luck—dat bath . . BaTHER—"Goin’ home in a barrel last summer taught me a lesson in y er havin’ some one ter watch his duds.” ii.ntmy clothes belore takin’ swine” comicbooks.com