Judge, 1911-10-21 · page 17 of 24
Judge — October 21, 1911 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page mocks American high society's pretension and shallow values through a horse show setting. The central cartoon depicts a "mind-reader" being questioned about the awkwardness of knowing others' true thoughts—a setup for satirizing society figures who hide behind facades. The accompanying dialogue ridicules wealthy New York socialites (names appear invented for comic effect: "Lord Dedbroke," "William Winkelton Blister") who attend horse shows not to appreciate animals but to display themselves as status symbols. The satire's target: these aristocrats' vanity is so extreme they should be "exhibited" like the horses—implying American wealth lacks genuine distinction. A secondary joke critiques the absurdity that society gossip fixates on trivial scandals (repeated divorces, remarriages) while the public cannot even identify who these people are. The "Badge of the Order of United American Easy Marks" advertisement (left) extends the mockery, suggesting Americans are gullible marks easily duped by false gentility.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
one of the deep, insoluble mysteries of existence, and he should have giv- en usa public dem- onstration of his method. There were at least a thousand of us there to-night trying to do the same thing that Bolly does, and, instead of showing us how to turn the trick successfully, he merely sat there in the back of his box sucking the head of his cane, while Mrs. Bolly nonchalantly pulled three-dollar-and-a-half orchids to pieces as she sat in front of him and gazed out of the depths of her three-hun- dred-dollar hat at her daughter’s fifteen- thousand-dollar span of Shetland ponies being tooled around the ring. Yes, sir, that horse show was nothing more nor less than a heart-breaking series of lost BADGE OP THE ORDER OP UNITED AMERICAN EASY MARKS. THE QUESTION. “* So you really are a mind-reader. Don’t you find it awfully embarrassing knowing what every one thinks of you ?"" opportunities. The people in the boxes weren't even labeled! You couldn’t have told Lord Dedbroke, who has just been acquired for his daughter Amaranth by Mr. Watkins Wibbles, of Newport, for ten cents on the dollar, from Tommie Stare, president of the Crackerjack Club; and, indeed, such was the prevail- ing ignorance on the score of the ex- hibits that I overheard one idiot telling a stranger that, while he wasn’t certain, he thought William Winkelton Blister, who has monopolized all the matrimonial scareheads in the newspapers for the past ten weeks in his quest for a black- smith willing to forge another hymeneal link for him strong enough to last until the next court session at Reno, was a horse jockey from Kentucky! Think of it! A leader of society taken for a plain, every-day, common-garden horse jockey! Why, it’s enough to make one despair of the republic!’’ “And you would have had him ex- hibited with the rest, eh?’’ said Binks. “I would indeed!"’ said the Genial Philosopher. ‘‘The American people have a right to see what kind of a per- son it is who represents at home and abroad the flower of American aristoc- racy, and if they had trotted William Winkelton Blister around the ring just three times’. —— “There'd have been a riot!"" laughed Little Binks. “*No,’’ said the Genial Philosopher. “There'd have been a Homeric laugh.’’ “And what would it all have come to in respect to the horse?’’ demanded Lit- tle Binks. “Oh,’’ said the Genial Philosopher, ‘as to that, it would have sent people home with a greater respect for that noble animal.’” What's the Use? MM’ KNOWLEDGE concerning the horse I'm really ashamed to admit; And so it is folly, of course, To write when I don’t know a bit. comicbooks.com