Judge, 1911-05-06 · page 16 of 28
Judge — May 6, 1911 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the "hobble skirt," a fashionable but restrictive women's garment popular in the early 1910s that severely limited leg movement. The main text is a woman's complaint about the impracticalities of wearing such a skirt in everyday life—crossing streets, boarding streetcars and taxicabs, retrieving money from her stocking, and nearly missing a boat. The satire targets both the absurdity of the fashion itself and women who slavishly follow trends despite obvious inconvenience. The header jokes that in Adams County, Ohio, women have formed political parties called "the Harems and the Hobbies"—equating restrictive skirts to harem confinement, suggesting the garment literally imprisons women. The small cartoon below depicts a child asking to examine a cannon, creating a pun on the fashion's "hobble" restriction versus actual danger. The piece mocks fashion's illogic while gently criticizing women's willingness to endure physical hardship for style.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
If it would, I should have let it go, for I was filled with mortification, At last, the conductor and the brakeman took me by my elbows and swung me up, or I never should have got aboard at all. “Then, in New York, it was dreadful! You know how I cross the street? I simply have to do it my own way, for it makes me nervous to depend on those policemen. I always cross in the mid- dle of a block to escape them, I just watch for a good chance, you know, and then I run across, fast, and I always manage all right. But, yesterday, I tried to run, and that awful skirt held me back, and when I was about half- way across I stumbled in it, and the trolleycars and motors just clambered all around me! How I got over alive, I don’t know. I shouldn’t have, only two nice men and a boy seemed to spring up from somewhere to help me. Well, then, I went on, and I suddenly discov- ered the lovely satin hem was getting awfully soiled. So I tried to hold it up, but— My dear, have you ever tried to hold up a hobblette? Well, don't! “It’s much more unmanageable than a sheath! I wanted to turn it up, likea man does his trousers legs, but I felt I was attracting enough attention as it was. Then, my dear, it was time to go to meet John, and I tried to get on a street car. Well, the board of elder- men, or whatever they are, will have to have those car steps made lower! I had my pay-as-you-go nickel all ready, but I LATEST NEWS OF THE HAREM SKIRT. In Adams County, Obio, where all the men voters have been disfranchised, the women have organized two new parties—the Harems and the Hobbies. just couldn’t get up to the place where you go. And the wretched conductor wouldn’t help me a bit! He just grinned, as if it were an old story to him. I tried three or four cars, but they all had high steps and unhelpful con- ductors; so I took a taxicab. “They do have sense enough to build the steps of the taxicabs fairly low, so 1 got in all right and went straight to Sherry’s. Well, I had been shopping, IT MIGHT GO OFF. “Oh, mother, may I go and look at the cannon ?"" “Yes; but remember, you 're not to point it at me."” John dida’t know why and never will!’ you know, and I had spent much more than I thought I had—I always do, don’t you?—and, if you please, I didn’t have money enough in my purse to pay that cabman! But that isn’t the worst of it! I did have more money with me, but it was in my stocking. I always carry some extra bills there, and I’m rather an adept at getting it out, if need be, without any one knowing what I’m do- ing. But that skirt wouldn't budge! I stepped back into the cab and shut the door, but I simply couldn't raise that hobblette enough to get my money! What could I do? Well, as good luck would have it, John came along just then, and I opened the cab door as if T had just arrived. John paid the bill. “We had a lovely luncheon—John is a dear man to go about with—and then we went to a matinee. But, oh, my dear, if my knees didn’t get cramped! Both feet went to sleep, and they wanted to walk in their sleep, but they couldn’t. Well, when we did come out, I could scarcely stand, let alone walk! And John hurried me to the station. Well, when we reached the boat it was just beginning to move from the dock. ‘Jump!’ said John. ‘It’s perfectly safe. I've got hold of you. We'll jump together now.” “**T won't!’ said I firmly, and I didn’t. Why, my dear, if had, we'd have both gone into the water. “So we waited for the next boat, but