Judge, 1906-12-29 · page 3 of 19
Judge — December 29, 1906 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page features a satirical essay mocking the tired tradition of writing humorous New Year's pieces. The author complains that creating "funny" Year's End content feels obligatory and exhausted—the same stale jokes recycled annually by lazy humorists. The illustration shows a street scene labeled "A Chesterfield," depicting everyday urban life with children and a dog, serving as visual contrast to the forced gaiety expected in holiday writing. The essay argues that humor about time passing and new beginnings has become clichéd. The author deliberately refuses to participate in this worn-out convention, instead offering straightforward, "saddish thoughts" rather than manufactured hilarity—a meta-joke about the predictability of holiday humor itself.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A CHESTERFIELD. ““W'y don't yer wash yer face, yer lobster?" Wot! an’ destroy de last lingerin’ sweetness uv de exquisite aroma uv dat superlative kiss-yer-give me dis forenoon?” Macoie—" Say, Chimmie, you're a jollier all right; but no woman kin help lovin’ youse."* ‘TIRED HUMORIST REFUSES TO GET GAY OVER THE OLD YEAR. READER ! Did you ever try to write something funny on the passing of the old year?, You did? Then you know. If you never did, listen to me, I thought I would get up an amusing stunt at this time and give the old year a tender little farewell and say something pleas- ant about the new year. I had done it before, and it didn’t occur to me that it would be difficult to repeat the performance. So I took my typewriter in hand (it will be understood that I am referring to a ype machine, of course) and inserted a beautiful white page and got myself into the writing pose, and then waited for the fun to commence. That's the way the humorist does, you know. There isn't a sparkle in his entire being, but he feels somehow that the act of posing himself before his typewriter (please bear in mind I am referring to my ma- chine all the time) will start the flow. Now, what would you say about the old year that would incline a reader to mirth? What cou/d you say? Presently a thought came— not a glad tidal rush, but a sort of reluctant ooze like the first hesitant drip of the molasses some fifteen minutes after you open the spig- ‘ot. And this is the way I thumped it down ‘on the typewriter (please remember that I am not referring now to etc., etc.): ‘As the old year glides swiftly and noiselessly toward the -then I lifted up the carriage to look it over. The line lay there as cold as a crow- har and didn't seem funny at all. Don't you think it’s about thé worst ever? Of course you do. Then I put before it «Gentle Read- "to see if that wouldn't give it a certain ingratiating something that would at least hold the reader from becoming violent until I could get up steam and make good further on. But, hang it all! that ++ gentle-reader ” palaver made me sick. That's the reason I began this article so abruptly and uncivil like—just yelled it out, you know. Reader! How do I know it's a gentle. reader? 1 asked myself, Bosh! I began all over. exits” “Turned to the President's published messages for recreation."* «* [desire to emit a few well-chosen and rather saddish thoughts on the subject of the passing of time,” I wrote next. Then I looked that over. Say, did you ever take a dose of picra with ipecac for a chaser? Well, that's the way that sentence struck me. It was posi- tively emetic in intensity. Then I fell to brooding. What is there funny, anyway, in the passing of the old year? I asked myself. Why should anybody want to get gay about a thing like that? You shuck off the wall a badly fly-specked sheet from which everything has been torn except a cod-liver oil ad. or the name of an insurance company and put up another pad with a highly-bepainted’ décolleté lady and Some new calendar-slips on it, and there you are. That's all there is to the passing of the old year. Then I shut up the typewriter (please don't forget, etc.) and went out to give the subject time to soak into me. (That's the way so many humorists become old soaks, I suppose—that is, i/ they do.) But it didn’t soak. I returned as dry as I was be- fore—that is, dry on the subject of the old ye—— But what's the use of explaining it? Time is a clock, and what is there funny about aclock? Why should the gladsome scoot of the second-hand or the gentle rhapsody of the little nickel demon that wakes you in the morning be considered funny? Of course the old year knocks off and a new year begins, but what of it? Reader! do you see any chance to b funny because to-day is December 31st and to-morrow is January 1st? I gave it up and turned to the President's published messages for recreation. Mew TOOK THE HINT. 66\ JILL you pardon my glove?” he pleaded Wks they met at the ferry slip. “Ob, yes,” she said as he grasped her hand; ‘I'm in need of a leather grip.” (So he gave her one fin Christmas.) ALCOHOL will not preserve ideals, comicbooks.com