Judge, 1904-12-03 · page 3 of 16
Judge — December 3, 1904 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a comic strip featuring "Nervy Nat," a recurring character in Judge magazine. The narrative follows Nat as he attends a football game, apparently attempting an elaborate scheme involving a car and obtaining money from wealthy individuals ("governors" and "Yale" are mentioned). The strip satirizes early 1900s automobile culture—depicting cars as novel, unreliable contraptions prone to breakdown. Nat's scheme involves using the vehicle to impress or swindle people, promising rides and collecting payment. The final panels show him at the football game itself, where the joke culminates in typical slapstick fashion with chaos ensuing. The satire targets both automotive technology's infancy and con-artist schemes that exploited public fascination with new inventions during this era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
sche LW Nervy Nat—"' Well, boys, off to the game? I'll bet your governors would remember me—Nervy Nat, ’eighty-five, Yale—dear old Yale! By the way, I've a gorgeous idea for you chaps if you want to have a spiffing afternoon of it. All | ask in return is that you'll let me in on this ride to the grounds, Put whiskey instead of gasoline in the tank and see what happens.” Reooie ano Siovey—"' You're on, old sport!”* Nerv Nat—"This will be the moral ruin of a heretofore virtuous bubble—I can see that, It will do a ‘pas seul’ at every corner and a highland fling between. Never mind; we will have a delightfully depraved afternoon, my boys, and all | hope is that the machine will not need our whole supply, tha'ts all. If we don’t get into the papers it will be because they no longer print news—eh, what Nervy Nat—"* We've put six cops out of business and run through a grocery-store, up the Forty-second-street elevated steps, down Into the subway and up again, and we are now headed for a saloon. This motor- car has the automo-tremens. There is going to be a beautiful finish, Just as sure as ""—— Nervy Nat—"Put on full booze, boys! We'll jump the fence and save the day for Yale. We ought to be able to kick a goal from the field with this inebriated Satan sulky of ours. You'll have to give this bubble a post-graduate course at Keeley’s college, that's sure. Now, up we go!" A Z ron ~yY¥ + 5. Nervy Nat—' How in greater New York did | get ahold of this leather watermelon? Well, I'll just take it over this goal as long as I’m going over any way. It may help old Yale, where | spent four years of my loaf—I mean life. One should never let the old college spirit die out inone. Brek-a-kek kex—coax—coax ""— Vi 6 Nervy Nat—" Won the game for you, did 1? Well, that was awfully good of me, I should say. Want to do something for me, eh? Tell you what; we'll’ go down to the St. Regis and have some zebra cutlets and frappéed prune-juice. And one more thing—send some wine-jelly and a bowl of Scotch broth around to Officer O'Toole. I feel that he must be ill or he surely would have come.”* NO. 51.—-NERVY NAT GOES TO A FOOTBALL GAME. comicbooks.com