Judge, 1911-07-01 · page 19 of 24
Judge — July 1, 1911 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several humorous pieces typical of early 20th-century American satire: **"Nature Sonnet"** and **"A Timely Travel Hint"**: Light rural humor. The poem mocks amateur verse about a stubborn hen; the travel hint jokes about disguising oneself as a beggar to travel Europe cheaply and avoid being recognized as a wealthy American (suggesting Americans were targets for exploitation abroad). **"Very Simple"**: Gentle satire on the Arts and Crafts movement—a popular but sometimes pretentious hobby among middle-class Americans. The joke mocks the movement's inefficiency: why spend evenings crafting an umbrella stand when you could simply lean it against a wall? **The Bell Telephone Advertisement**: Using the metaphor of highways and roads, it argues for universal, standardized telephone infrastructure. This is corporate propaganda framed as public service—comparing good telephone lines to well-maintained macadam roads, promoting Bell's monopolistic "One Policy, One System, Universal Service" model. The page is primarily **advertising and light humor**—no overt political satire beyond gentle mockery of affectation and consumerism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Nature Sonnet. (By the Village Poet.) A KETCHED a settin’ hen the other day An’ put her in a hen coop all alone. “V'll break you up or break your ev’ry bone, By heck!'’ my ma an’ me we heard him say; “You can’t set here, you've simply got dered round the coop an’ clucked like mad, An’ fussed an’ fretted, while her voice was sad; An’ then she scratched some rocks up ina pile An’ set upon them with a happy smile, While pa said things I shouldn’t want to say. “By thunderation, you ol’ scamp!"’ says he; “Don’t want you hatchin’ no more rocks fur me— T’ve got too many now!"" An’ so he went an’ got A dozen aigs or so an’ let her sot. Jer Cone, A TIMELY TRAVEL HINT. This disguise, though a bit heavy for summer, enabled a gentleman from Centerville, Kansas, last season to see England with considerably less expense than other Americans who were marked. Very Simple. «s7’VE BEEN working two or three evenings, making an umbrella stand,’’ says the man who has taken up arts and crafts endeavor. “Two or three evenings!’’ exclaims the other man. ‘‘Why waste all that time? Why don’t you lean it ina corner or stick it in the ground?’’ If You Would Preserve Your Lustrous Eyes, Use Murine Eye Tonic—A Favorite Toilet Luxury. Two Drops—No Smarting—Feels Good. The Good Road For Universal Service! Every man’s home faces on a road which connects with every other road and leads to every other home throughout the whole land. Main highways connect with cross- roads so that a man can go where he chooses easily and comfortably if conditions are favorable. But the going is not always the same; some roads are good—some are bad. The experts in the South illustrate the difference by showing four mules drawing two bales of cotton slowly over a poor, muddy cross- road, and two mules drawing eight bales of cotton rapidly over a first- class macadam highway. The Bell Telephone lines are the roads over which the speech of the nation passes. The highways and by-ways of personal communication are the 12,000,000 miles of wire connect- ing 6,000,000 telephones in homes on these highways. Steadily the lines are being extended to every man’s home. The public demands that all the roads of talk shall be good roads. It is not enough to have a system that is universal; there must be macadamized highways for talk all the way to every man’s home. A single section of bad telephone line is enough to block communication or confine it to the immediate locality, Good going on the telephone lines is only possible with one policy and one system. Good going everywhere, at all times, is the aim of the Bell system. AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY: AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES One Policy One System Universal Service THe CHAMPAGNE Or BoTTLED In answering advertisements please mention JUDGE. It will be appreciated. BEER MILLE R-MILWAUKEE comicbooks.com