Judge, 1900-09-22 · page 6 of 16
Judge — September 22, 1900 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several short humorous sketches mocking courtship and marriage customs of the era. **"Her Answer"**: A widower (Deacon Whitrock) who has buried four wives proposes to a sharp-tongued spinster. She refuses bluntly, noting his cemetery lot is "full now"—a dark joke implying his wives died suspiciously or that he'll soon need more burial space. **"The Correct Time"** and **"His Idea"**: Brief joke exchanges about timing and logic in relationships. **"No Criterion to Go By"**: Uncle Judson complains that studying centenarians' habits yields no useful pattern—they all took *different* patent medicines, satirizing the era's widespread snake-oil remedies and folk medicine claims. **"Generous but Impulsive"**: A minister who married "Bronco Pete" for fifty dollars admits the groom plans to return shooting to "get square"—mocking both hasty frontier marriages and frontier justice. The overall tone ridicules rural courtship, mercenary clergy, quack medicine, and violent masculine honor codes.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HER ANSWER HEN a little more than an indecent interval had elapsed after the burial of his fourth wife, Deacon Whitrock called on a certain waspish spinster of the neighborhood, and after referring to the weather, the crops, and sundry other time-worn subjects, crossed, uncrossed and recrossed his lank limbs, caressed his freshly-dyed neck-whiskers nervously, and began, “Er—hack! Miss Fortysmith—er—er—Floretta—I—I—er—ah !—am a plain, blunt man of few words. I—that is, will you—er—share my lot and” “ snapped the lady. “I'm just as blunt as you are, even if I ain't quite so plain, I was up to the cemetery day before yesterday, lookin’ at your lot—and in my opinion it’s full now. G'day!" THE CORRECT TIME. Smith—* When did you come back from the mountains, Robinson ?” Robinson—" When the landlord and the mosquito sent in their bills.” HIS IDEA. Sue—"' I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth.” 1x—"* Of course not. There would be no one to perform the ceremony.” NO CRITERION TO GO BY. Uncle Judson—" They say the way to live long is to study the habits of the men who have lived very old; and I've been investigatin’ the conduct of all these men that have lived to be a hundred years old that we read of in the papers, and I'll be hanged if T can make very much headway in the work.” A. BARGAIN. Aunt Albina—* What seems ter be the bother, Jud?” it'll cost de state t'ree hundred dollars to electrocute you.” Uncle Judson—"* Well, fer one thing, I can't find any two of them that took the same kind of patent medicine.” GENEROUS, BUT IMPULSIVE. — Frozen Dog)—'* 1 got filty dollars yesterday for marrying Bronco Pete there.” Vhat a noble fellow!” MivisveR—* Well—er—yes; but he's liable to come round in about a week and shoot me full of holes to get square.” comicbooks.com