Judge, 1908-08-15 · page 6 of 16
Judge — August 15, 1908 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This story satirizes the early automobile craze and "scorchers"—reckless drivers who sped dangerously through streets. The protagonist, a die-hard motorist, dies and encounters St. Peter, who refuses him entry to Heaven because automobiles violate the city's anti-automobile ordinance. Defiant, the scorcher chooses Hell instead, hoping to use his machine there. The joke escalates: even the Devil rejects him, finding the automobile incompatible with Hell's operations. The scorcher ultimately prefers returning to Yuma (likely a remote, undesirable place on Earth) with his beloved car rather than spending eternity without it—suggesting his obsession with automobiles exceeds his concern for salvation itself. The satire mocks both the scorcher's single-minded devotion to motoring and broader anxieties about the automobile's disruptive social impact. The piece reflects early 20th-century attitudes toward fast driving as reckless and antisocial.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
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