Judge, 1901-11-16 · page 10 of 16
Judge — November 16, 1901 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This nine-panel comic uses cumulative, circular logic to satirize suburban domesticity and the chaos of modern homeownership. A man is ordered by his wife to dig up their backyard lot. He plants seeds there, which grow into a garden. A hen smells the loam, destroys the garden while scratching, and this destruction becomes "chaos" and "imbecile" ruin—all traced back to the wife's initial command. The satire targets the absurdity of domestic authority and unintended consequences: a simple spousal directive cascades into complete disorder through no one's direct fault. It mocks both the henpecked husband and the assumption that following orders guarantees reasonable outcomes. The other brief sketches on the page—about an oil-rich farmer measuring library capacity by linear footage, and a college boy overeating—share similar themes: the newly wealthy and their ridiculous social pretensions; generational foolishness.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
This ts the spade as used by the man who was told by his wife to spade up the lot that lay back of the house the man built. This is the hen who scented the loam which covered the garden produced by the man who planted the seeds after using the spade as told by his wife to dig up the tat eh lay back of the house the man ult. A THOUGHTLESS PLEBE. Porkmoney—"read of a man that owned a farm in the oil re- gions in Ohio, and he got rich and bought a house here in Chicago. He did n't have many books, so he measured the capacity of his library and sent a man out to buy fifty feet of books! How crude.” Mrs. Porkmoney— “H'mph! Ishould say so. He did n't say anything to the man, I suppose, about get- ting the books so their colors and style of binding would harmo- nize with the way the room was finished.” A WATER-SPOUT —A temperance Farwer Everorzen—' The pesky fule sez he's be'n stuffin’ for six weeks! talk. biller one ‘er these days!” Farmer Everoreen—(reading letter from his son at college) ‘seem to lose none of his bad habits—he allus did overeat when he was ter hum!” Farmer's Wire—'* What's he be'n doin’ of naow, Silas?" These are the seeds that were sown by the man who had used the spade as told his wife to dig up the lot that lay bac of the house the man built. This is the chaos produced by the hen who scented the garden produced by the man who planted the seeds after using the spade as told by his wife to dig up the lot that lay back of the house the man built. | A GOURMAND. Wal, Sophia. thet boy of ourn don’t for He'll bust his fule This is the wife who told the man to spade up the lot which lay back of the house the man built. 6. This is the garden produced by the man who planted the seeds after using the spade as told by his wife to dig up the lot that lay back of the house the man built. This is the shattered and imbecile thing pro- duced by the chaos produced by the hen who scented the garden produced by the man who planted the seeds after using the spade as told by his wife to dig up the lot that lay back of the house the man built. A NICKEL PLATED FACT. HE average man would he better off if he could only look for a tén thousand dollar job with the same persistence, per- severance and pa- tience that he displays in looking foratwenty- five cent golf ball. PREPARATIONS. Miss Summit— “Look in the maga- zines and see what is the most popular book in St. Louis, please.” Miss Palisade “Certainly. What do you want to know Miss Summit “Oh I'm going out there on a visit.”