Judge, 1909-09-18 · page 6 of 16
Judge — September 18, 1909 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes boarding-house life, a common American living arrangement of the era. The central cartoon depicts the typical boarding-house hierarchy and its residents: the proprietress (a formerly wealthy woman now reduced to running the establishment), the self-important "star boarder," a wealthy widow with a pearl-necklace-obsessed husband, and various other lodgers—including an old maid, a dry-goods clerk with mysterious employment, and a young couple expecting suburban homeownership. The satire's point: boarding houses represent *mutual discomfort* masked by forced gentility. Everyone is temporarily poor or in decline, united only by economic necessity and social pretense. The "grim specter of Economy" secretly torments each resident. Secondary cartoons joke about aeroplanes ("anybody can fly"), financial collapse ("Wall Street magnate...died at the wrong moment"), and jewelry fraud. The page mocks middle-class aspiration and the facade of respectability in crowded, economically-driven shared housing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘THE BOARDING HOUSE. HE boarding house is a place where people are band- ed together for mutual discomfort, and is presided over by a lady who used to yp but in reduced cir- be a society que is now house gentility, that around and waits on everybody. Int verybody was once nly, is tempe rily nobody (this bein | purely voluntary) and linge hous- expects soon to be is the star », in spite of his exalted position (this is purely figure tive, for he ly oc cupies the second floor front), always says, ** Good morni ” There is the Indy whose husband was a ek pearl $1,000 for that be white diamond.» THERE ARE OTHERS. making so much fuss over “Tdon't see why they Anybody can tly.” these aeroplanes. Wall Street magnate, but died at the wrong moment. There is the old maid who takes cap- sules with every meal and is on intimate terms with the four hundred. Th the board- ing-house child, who picks up crumbs of sentiment in odd cor- ners, and absorbs a fi mosphere with- out seeming to be affected by it. There is the dry- goods clerk, whose business nobody knows until the secret is one day imparted by a la- dy who bought some silk at his counter, ‘There is the young married couple just FRESH EGE TAKEN starting out, who ex- pect to own their own home in the suburbs in the near future, Over all is the grim specter of E omy, sceretly teasing each inmate. ars brightly colored hair Until one Hoy —" Ma wants * Does she wa Only the little does not feel it, fats come out ayain until late, With her, 1 eos her go int y is of no consequence. a manicure parlor early, and not day son THOMAS L, MAGN. PLayinc with temptation nearly always ends ina fight. a =3 DON'T LIE. + she patd that supeth ma clots $3,000 for the and quis POULTRY NOTE. ys must have fed on dates ” commliclkookks cori) cach for her earrin nal-studded watch “ Gee whiz! the hen who laid these