Judge, 1900-05-12 · page 7 of 16
Judge — May 12, 1900 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This 1900 satirical page offers four separate humorous sketches about modern life and social change: **"With Warranted Joy"** imagines the year 2000, where the "New Woman" has arrived—Mrs. Wedayeer is a businesswoman who trades stocks and has just given birth. The joke mocks outdated social anxieties: colleagues congratulate her on her baby while casually discussing Congress lacking police oversight, treating both as equally remarkable. **"Maiden Modesty"** satirizes excessive prudishness through a conversation where a woman dreams of taking in laundry but is too bashful to state her romantic intentions directly. **"Very Natural"** presents innocent child-logic: five-year-old Katie, seeing milk in coconut, asks if a coconut is "a cow's egg?" **"The Reward of Virtue"** offers dark workplace satire: an employer fires his most dedicated clerk specifically *because* his work ethic and attention to detail make him a threat—he'll steal the business's methods. The page reflects turn-of-century concerns about women entering business, changing social mores, and industrial anxieties about labor competition.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WITH WARRANTED JOY. >T WAS the last year in the last decade of the twentieth cent- ury—or at least there were those who so contended, and still others who held that the year previous had marked the century's end and that this was the first of a new one. The old question had not been killed with the cold of a hundred winters or stricken with the heat’of a hundred summers’ suns. It was the year 2000, and in busy marts and crowded thoroughfares the new wo- man was omnipresent. She whose coming had been her- alded ‘way back in the musty nineteenth century had ar- rived. Mrs, Wedayeer had just alighted from the aerial car which had borne her ZA from the Wedayeers’ beautiful suburban home to Zon the down-town business district, and as she paused ‘Say, Bill, here’s a article w'ot says a senator has held de same seat in congress fer twenty years.” a moment on the corner to purchase the morning “Dats nothin’. Dey hain't no cops in congress.” Just then two floor members who were not in the secret joined the circle just in time to receive an invitation from Mrs. Weda- yeer to the whole crowd to go and have a cigar. As they crowded in the to- bacconist shop and called for their favorite brands, Mrs. Wed- ayeer*spoke in an aside to the two unenlightened sisters, while her face lighted with a glow of ineffable pride, “ It’s a ten-pound girl!” vor 7aRnaLt. CaxExe, VERY NATURAL. KATIE. the five-year-old, had observed the milk in the cocoanut for the first time, and with a dawning intelligence ex- claimed, MAIDEN MODESTY. “Mamma, isn't a cocoanut Mr, Jounson—"* Miss Snoflaike told me she dreampt dat she was takin’ in washin' fo’a livin’. Wondah whad she meant a cow's egg?” by dat?” Mr. Jackson—"* Why, cain't yo! see? She wantéd to tell yo' dat she dreampt yo’ an’ her.was married, but was too bashful to say so outright.” paper from the newsboy, that she might glance over the foreign markets ere the opening of the stock-exchange, where she held a seat, a number of her sister- brokers crowded about her and seemed to be indulging in a bit of good-natured chaffing at her expense. ‘Some one had given her joy- ous secret away, and while she did not particularly care, yet she had meant to say nothing about it for a week or so at least. But news will travel, you know, and everybody had heard. There was an air of embarrassment about the young Mrs. Wedayeer, and yet something of mingled pride and gratification withal. The jovial feminine brokers, sister THE REWARD OF VIRTUE. exchange members, slapped her Empiover—"'I have noticed, Mr. Johnson, that you, of all the clerks, seem to put your whole life and soul into your on the back, and with a raillery work; that no detail is too small to escape your critical attention, no hours too long to cause you to repine.” of words 4 to only add CLERK (joy/ully)—* Y-yes, sir!" Words seemed to only add to EmpLover—‘And so, Mr. Johnson, I am forced to discharge you at once. It is such chaps as you that go out and the embarrassment, start rival establishments after they have got the whole thing down pat.” ‘ comicbooks.com