Judge, 1903-12-05 · page 2 of 16
Judge — December 5, 1903 — page 2: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Judge* contains political commentary and a comic strip titled "How to Exercise in a Flat." **Political Content:** The upper text discusses the Panama Canal as a national institution and references President Cleveland (likely Grover Cleveland). The passage critiques how people underestimate the canal's importance and suggests political figures lack genuine understanding of its significance. There's also commentary on the Christmas shopping season and consumer culture. **Comic Strip:** The six-panel strip satirizes apartment living and exercise, showing residents attempting various physical activities in cramped quarters—jumping, stretching, and moving furniture—resulting in chaos and collisions with neighbors. The humor derives from the impracticality of exercising in confined urban spaces. The overall tone mixes political observation with gentle social satire about modern city life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY Av Tue Parxer BUILpine, Founrm AVENUE AND NixereENTm Staxer, New Youre. Wasrean Apvexnisixc Orrice—S28 Marquette Building, Chicage, Mt. ‘One copy, one year, or s2 numbers - One copy, six months, or 26 numbers - ‘One copy, for thirteen weeks Tncluding the Cunistaas Juoce. FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS—To all foreign countries in the postal union, $5.00 a year. Evnorean sates-acexts—/aternationas News Company, Bream's building, Chancery Lane, £.C, London ; Brentana's, Avenue de t' Opera, Paris: Saariach's News Exchange, Mains, Germany. The contents of FUDGE are protected by copyright in both the United States and Great Britain. Infringement of this conyrght will be promotly and vigorously prosecuted. CONTRIBUTORS mast inctose a stamped and self-addressed entoelope with all manuscripts, otherwise retam of the Latter when found unarvaitabls cannot be goaranteed. DRAWINGS and all contribations sent to the Art Department should have the sender's full name and address ‘written plainly on each and separate shetch. The accompanying joke or every descripttoe letter-press should in dbery instance be written upon tts indtoidual picture, and NOT upon a separate stip of paper. lnclosure of stamps to the full amount of postage (s also required, 0 insure safe and promot retom of matertal not accepted. TIS SAFE to bet the bags of coin That e’er are on the wing, That through the dizzy Tenderloin The horse-play is the thing. AFTER A WHILE the steel stock that was once so alluring and mighty may be run through the hay-cutter of fate and so ground up for utili- zation as the casual theatrical snow-storm. NOW THAT it is an assured fact that the Panama canal is to shine as an actual institution, the people should realize before a great while that the work will be done, as if by contract, not to say magic, by President Roosevelt, and not as if by day’s work by a horde of underhanded grafters and batteners. It will not be a job similar to that of the metropolitan subway, that is dragging itself along with the rapidity of a deceased snake, and on anything and everything but the fly. In the meantime the presi- dent is dreaming pleasant day-dreams beneath the bamboo-tree of achieve- ment while discoursing dulet melodies that are enjoyed by eager and ap- preciative listeners in all parts of the land where progress and the triumphs that go hand in hand with it count for anything. No matter whether the tempo of the president’s music is andante or adagio, the pulse of the people beats to and with it, and all is serene and lovely musically and politically, while the goose of prosperity hangs high. ‘THE PIG-KILEING SEASON is now well advanced, and in a very brief time the Democratic-minority hog will have the traditional corn-cob between his jaws, while he does the pendulum act from a beam securely annexed to one of his hinder members. He is a graft-fed beast and bulging with a rosy rotundity which to the highly imaginative seer suggests a political reincarnation of Grover Cleveland. He is being led to the slaugh- ter which is so surely his without reference to leaders and adherents, who are all at the present writing on this hog of hogs. Their frantic efforts to stay on are difficult to understand or to account for, even when the fact is duly appreciated that they represent a party that has for so long a time en- joyed an undisputed monopoly of the down-grade to defeat, not to say annihilation, And they will still be down-grade porquestrians long after the porker upon which they ride to-day has been translated into the sausage that gilds the passing frost-embroidered moments, as well as into the paint- brushes, drumheads and footballs of commerce. ‘THE CHRISTMAS FEELING is already in the air. Against the sombre gray the casual snowflake is idly pirouetting through the branches of the fir, to the joy of the snowbird, the snow-shoveler, and the small boy who has not yet outgrown last year’s sled. The toys are already disport- ing and showing off their gay colors and spangles in the shop-windows, and everything, from books and paper-weights to,sealskin sacques and razors, are being blazoned and trumpeted from Dan to Beersheba as being the suitable and proper things for gifts. The commercial optics of the jan- itor and the tonsorial acolyte, who wields the whisk-broom as if it were a sceptre, have been oiled at the hinges and are now wide open for the tips that make: the horseless carriage go. Jack Frost is discoursing witching fantasies on the trumpet of the north, and daintily etching all sorts of quaint and curious conceits on the window-pane. Let us trust that coal will go down in price as swiftly as our spirits go up in joy and grateful apprecia- tion, to the end that we may smoke the corn-cob pipe of peace and feel that our stocking, like the pitcher of Fortunatus, may not be emptied, while the Christmas chimes are trembling in the lively ozone. HOW TO EXERCISE IN A FLAT. comicbooks.com