Judge, 1911-03-18 · page 7 of 24
Judge — March 18, 1911 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous essay by Edwin L. Sabin mocking New England regional stereotypes. The author adopts a deliberately ignorant persona (admitting he's never been east of Iowa) to satirize: **Boston**: Famous for baked beans and tea parties; Bostonians wear spectacles constantly and famously cannot pronounce the letter "r" (a well-known Boston accent joke). **Plymouth Rock**: Associated with the Pilgrims' chickens and pants manufacture; thanksgiving origins. **Maine**: ("Down-in-Maine") Referenced but not yet explained. The top illustration, "The Bars That Keep the Wolf Out," shows a wolf at a cottage door—likely illustrating frontier/rural New England dangers. The sidebar illustration depicts a failed banker, referencing financial scandals common to the era. The satire works through exaggeration of regional characteristics and the narrator's mock-earnest misunderstandings, a common Judge magazine technique for poking fun at American regional pride and peculiarities.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE BARS THAT KEEP THE WOLF OUT. The Charms of New England. By EDWIN L. SABIN. HAVE never been east of Sioux City, Ia., so I will write what I know about New Eng- land for JupGE. New England is divided into three parts — Boston, Plymouth Rock, and Down-in-Maine. The capital is New York. Now I will tell about Boston. Boston is famous for its baked beans, with Emerson sauce, served at all the tea parties. As soon as little boys and girls are old enough to see, they are put into Spectacles instead of into short pants, and are sent out to slide down Bunker Hill, which is a very famous hill where the King George’s red coats fought a Tesolution never to use any word with “fr in it. The Bostons won the pen- nant, and now they don’t have to use “r."" But Iam glad I’m not a Boston, because I like oysters. I once saw a lit- tle boy from Boston, and I couldn’t un- derstand him when he talked; but he let me wear his spectacles and I licked him, so we had fun. Now I will tell about Plymouth Rock. Piymouth Rock is famous for its chickens and its pants. I guess maybe it in- vented both. When our forefathers landed on Plymouth Rock they brought over a lot of chickens and turned them loose, and then set up a pant factory, because it was cold with the breaking waves and they had to have something to wear. The Indians were the first customers. After that there was a big thanksgiving about the chickens and the pants. Some of the chickens grew into turkeys, and those are what we eat to- day for Thanksgiving. If it wasn't for turkey and pants I don’t know how we'd get along when winter sets Now I will tell about Down-in-Maine. THE BANK FAILED AND HIS CHECKS WERE NO GOOD.” comicbooks.com