Judge, 1902-08-02 · page 7 of 16
Judge — August 2, 1902 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from Judge (an American satirical weekly) contains several humorous short pieces typical of the era's comedy writing: **"Rebuilding the House"** is the main feature—a shaggy-dog story about cascading home renovations. Mr. Mutt buys his wife a decorative hall lamp, but it's too large for the existing staircase, so he hires carpenters to widen the stairs. Each modification necessitates further work: the hall looks wrong, so walls come down; the kitchen relocates; a new parlor is needed; the veranda must go for a library. By the story's end, he's rebuilt an entire three-story house—only to have a worker's dropped hammer destroy the original lamp that started everything. The satire mocks the absurdity of home improvement projects spiraling into catastrophic expense. The surrounding vignettes ("Correcting a Wrong Impression," "The Quarrel," "Spirit Rappings," and rural farmer jokes) are separate, brief comedy sketches with contemporary social observations about marriage, marriage as misfortune, and rural life.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
REBUILDING THE HOUSE. Pp yES,” said Mr. Mutt, «it was rather odd, the way I came to re- build my house. You see, Mrs. Mutt, she was down town one day and happened to buy a very hand- some hall-lamp—one of the kind that sets on the newel-post of the stairs. Well, as soon as she got it in the right. away that it was too big for the style of the stairs ; so Thad to get the car- penters to come in house we saw and widen them and put in new halustrades and posts, and set them over more toward the cen- tre of the hall, When that done the hall didn’t look like a hall-way at all, and T had to have the carpenters go ahead and tear out the walls and make the old sitting-room into a. new hall. CORRECTING A WRONG IMPRESSION. Then, of course, the kitchen had to be torn away and rebuilt back of the house, so that the old kitchen would do for a sit finish of the hall. ing-room, and there had to be a new parlor built to match the And when things got along that far we saw at once that we had to have a library kind of off of the hall, and then the veranda had to go to make room for the library, and my pet rose-bushes came up to give a chance to build the new veranda, Well, to make Farmer Greet Farmer Surrn— No; fine. FAmivy | ENTRANCE] “ Bad goin’, Josh?" SPIRIT RAPPINGS, Hain't met an ‘auto ter-day.” along story short, I had to remodel the second story to match the first and put a third story on in order to take care of the rooms that were crowded out by the changes in the second. And sol had a new house all round.” And was your wife pleased ?" “Only partly. You see, just on the last day, when the carpenters had finished the third story and were quitting work on the whole job, one of them dropped his hammer through the skylight, and it fell to the hall and smashed that stair-lamp that had started the whole thing.” THE QUARREL, 66} {OW did it happen 2" “Well, she insisted on going to the club and he threatened to go home to his father.” “Witney tells me that Miss Graham, poor girl! has joined the great majerity."" ‘Yes; she has married a man named Smith.” IN SOUTH DAKOTA. 446]'M sorry for you; but, of course, a lottery «Yes; [think I'll try another ticket.” A MODEST KICK. “Where's yer paw?" “Up there. Bull tossed him."* “Waal, yew stay right here, ‘n’ come right over 1’ th’ haouse. wants t’ see "baout a load o' hay." 1n’ soon as ever he comes down yew tell him t’ quit foolin’ with thet pesky bull marriage is Hiram Peters comicbooks.com