Judge, 1902-05-10 · page 12 of 20
Judge — May 10, 1902 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical page from *Judge* contains several humor pieces mocking human pretension and spring-season follies: **"Genius Thwarted Again"** ridicules absurd scientific ambition—a inventor attempts to cross a mosquito with a hen to create egg-laying insects. The scheme predictably backfires: the hybrid creature bites people at night instead of laying eggs, leaving him with lawsuit damages and an unchanged egg market. The satire suggests that some "brainy" schemes are fundamentally foolish. **Other vignettes** mock spring social rituals: a couple's marital tension over spring steak portions; a prehistoric poet struggling to rhyme "pterodactyl"; a man whose architectural skills oddly manifest in his wife's absurdly tall hat design. **"Spring Moving in Bugville"** uses animals (turtles, beetles) as stand-ins for working-class tenants seeking spring apartments—likely commentary on seasonal urban housing shortages or tenant instability. The humor targets intellectual pretension, domestic tensions, and the chaos of spring's social transitions, using exaggeration and animal characters as mild satirical devices typical of early-20th-century American humor magazines.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
GENIUS THWARTED AGAIN. NE time there was a brainy savant who studied and studied for years over the problem of combining the mosquito and the hen. His aim was to propagate a new species of hen that would possess the egg-laying abilities of the mosquito. He calculated to roll in wealth after he got the new concern started At last success crowned his efforts, You couldn't tell, by looking at it, whether it was go- ing to roost on a tree or in a swamp. But, alas! Instead of laying eggs like a man putting up a brick wall, the insect-fowl persisted in flying around at night, buzzing like a saw-mill and biting large sections out of people. Consequently the brainy genius had plenty of damage- suits to defend, and the egg-market was unshaken, This may be fanciful to some extent, but there are instances where a hen-mind is given a mosquito education, with the result that it produces more buzz than anything else. $6 OW did you manage tw vot that spring-bed so cheap ?” Sweet-girl “ Well, you see, | bought it in the fall. ee Y Yy Ls f 0. iffy YW YY MM IN SPRING YOUTH’S FANCY, ETC. Mr. J. Meexer Henrece—"* There don't appear to be enough steak here for two." Mrs. Henrecx—* You serve that steak. There's enough for me." TRIALS OF GENIUS. $8] T IS no use,” wailed the prehistoric poet, throwing his stone-chisel down in despair. “It is no use,” he continued. “ By the time I can find a rhyme for pterodactyl and chisel this stone, which holds the first stanza of my spring poem, I will have to get a snow-shovel to keep my manuscript in work- ing shape.” IN HIS LINE. Mrs, Chestnut— “ Mrs. Chesty’s husband designed her spring hat.” Mr. Chestnut “Well, it’s right in his line. He is an architect of sky-scrapers.” it on A MIDNIGHT IDYL. - Burctar—"' Nuttin’ doin’ here, Bill.”* Mr Fir—" Say. vacant ones in that house of yours?” graduate— And now comes the momentous time we start the battle of life ™ SPRING MOVING IN BUGVILLE. Mr. Turtle, we're looking for a flat. Are there any THE VALEDICTORY. Henpekt— Great Scott! are they all going to marry HIS SPRING CLOTHES. TERE was a young fellow named Jno, And every new suit he would dno Was of such a poor grade, And so very ill-made, It looked worse than the last he had no. CAROLYN WRLLS, ACCOUNTED FOR. “So Ferdy has been tracing back his an- Eret—"*Yes, and found his first ancestor was a gar- bage-contractor.”” Guavys—"'I thought he seemed ‘in the dumps” about something.” comicbooks.com Soure Other An In ki Once ‘The ¢ WI “Sue Bette ‘Than wi