Judge, 1898-05-14 · page 7 of 18
Judge — May 14, 1898 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several unrelated humorous fables and jokes typical of Judge's satirical format: **"The Precious Bane"** (main story): A moral tale where one young man mocks his companion for using mosquito repellent ointment in the Adirondacks. When a bear attacks, the ointment's smell saves the scoffer's life—the bear finds the other man (who applied it) so distasteful it attacks the unprotected man instead. The moral: don't condemn remedies before proving their worthlessness. The remaining items are brief joke vignettes with no political content: wordplay about "ptomaines" (food poisoning), servant gossip about lovesickness, and humor about fresh berries. **Context for modern readers**: The references to Civil War substitutes and Canadian railroad fares in the opening suggest this dates to the American Civil War era, but the page itself contains no political satire—just conventional Victorian-era family humor and animal fables.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Guage JUDGE'S FABLES. THE PRECIOUS BANE. WO young men who were spending their summer vacation in the Adirondacks were reclining at ease in a mossy dell and en- joying a general conversation about war, the price of substitutes, and the railroad fare to Canada. While chatting thus one of the young men bantered his compan- ion for smearing mosquito bane upon his face and hands, insisting that the odor of the bite-preventive ointment was less to be endured than the obnoxious mos- quitoes themselves. While speaking in defense of the ointment they were both horrified by the appearance of a ravenous bear rushing menacingly upon them. In- stantly the bantering young man stam- peded to a solitary sapling and climbed up into safety. The other, seeing no help for himself, threw himself flat on his back, stiffened his body and held his breath. The bear, coming up to him, sniffed at his hands and face with a disdainful grimace (natural from the ointment smell) and slouched over to the sapling occupied by his com- panion, thinking the prostrate man undoubtedly dead, and squatted comfortably at the foot of it, and waited for the banterer to descend. Meanwhile his friend had cautiously crawled off to a safe distance and then, springing to his feet, put a safe distance be- tween himself and Bruin and soon sent back a relief party with guns to rescue his PROOF CONCLUSIVE. MepiaTor—"* He's bin goin’ on like dat fer a week, He don't git no sleep, but keeps moanin’ an’ mentionin’ yer name,”* Lizzir—"* Does he refuse his wittles?* Meptatox—"* Ob, no!” Lizzix—"" Den it isn't love w'ot's a-worryin’ him. Wot he wants is exercise.” friend. The relief shot the bear, and thus was the banterer saved by the very remedy he had made so much light of. Moral—Condemn nothing until its inefficacy has been proven beyond peradventure. w. x. coox. EXACTLY. Mrs, Lookout— John, how dare you eat shad- roes when there is so much talk of ptomaines?” Mr. Don't Care (her brother) —" Easy enough. I never eat pto-many.” PROOF OF IT. Mrs. Wealthy— Are your berries {resh, little AN UNFORTUNATE ERROR. one?” Easy Tu1nco—"'I seen a hump-backed feller ter-day an’ touched him on de hump fer luck.” iencit i Yer don't look exactly benefited.” Margaret (experiencing for the first time the Easy Tittncc—"" Naw. He turned round an’ assassinated me all over de read, -He wuz nuttin’ trials of a berry-vender)—" Yes, ma'am. Our bush- es don't raise anything but fresh ones.”” PROVIDENTIAL FLOTSAM. SPRING-FLOOD OUTCAST—""Ah, here comes some sort of sign float- ing this way. I'll secure it; it-may' be something to aid, _— comicbooks.com