Judge, 1912-03-02 · page 12 of 24
Judge — March 2, 1912 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents "Uncle Silas Goes to Grand Opera," a rural-versus-urban satire common to early 20th-century American humor magazines. **The Setup:** Uncle Silas, a country man from "Stringtown," visits New York City and attends the opera—an unfamiliar, elite cultural experience. The satire works through his dialect-heavy narration to townspeople gathered around a store stove. **The Joke:** The humor derives from Silas's confused encounters with urban sophistication: rental formal wear that doesn't fit properly, taxi cabs he finds bewilderingly fast, opera house seating terminology ("orchestra" misheard), and British staff with "dropped h's." The punchline involves a woman who accidentally removes her blouse along with her coat, leaving her in only a corset—played for comedic shock. **The Satire:** This mocks both rural ignorance of city ways and the pretension of high culture itself. The top illustrations—"Coast Defence of the Future"—appear unrelated, likely part of Judge's typical mixed content format. The humor relies on class and regional stereotypes now considered crude.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
COAST DEFENCE OF THE FUTURE—WINDING OFF A FLEET OF Uncle Silas “HAowpy, Silas?”’ said Lem Gil- strap, the postmaster and gen- eral merchant of Stringtown, as the per- son addressed entered his emporium. “*Heerd ye went tew the opery while ye wuz tew Noo York visitin’ along Hiram’s folks." “Wall, I shud calklate I did,’’ said Uncle Sila: ‘en I wunt never fergit it —no, sirree!"" “What wuz it like? Can’t ye tell us abaout it?’’ Lem asked. This suggestion was echoed by a half-dozen other Stringville citi- zens who were grouped around the comfortable-looking stove in the rear of the store, where they daily congregated in the winter season for the mental recreation gotten from the interchange of profound ideas, “What wuz it like?’’ repeated Uncle Silas, seating himself on an inviting and centrally located nail keg. ‘It warn’t like nothin’, It wuz the tarnationest lot uv crazy carryin’s on thet I ever heerd tell on. Cum purty nigh supper-time, Hiram, he sez tew me, ‘Dad,’ he sez, ‘I hev tew tickets fer the opery to-night; but ye can’t wear them cloze,’ he sez. ‘Ye’ll hev tew hevevenin’ cloze.’ The near- est thing I hed tew evenin’ cloze wuz night cloze, but I sez, ‘I’ve gota biled shirt in the valeese thet yer ma done up last year. I've only hed it on five er six times, enit.hain’t dirty y I sez. Goes ‘I'll put thet on, en turn my vest back Husses, en pin up my black t soz it'll look jest like But Hi, he sez we'd hev under my meetin’ co yourn,’ Is tew go toa costoom rentin’ place en hire one. “Wail, I faound one thet wud a fit me fine ef it hadder ben 'baout six sizes bigger. The pants wuz so tight yew Botu—“' Gee! what a nerve he has.’ HOSTILE AIRSHIPS to Grand Opera. cud see my verricose veins clean through ‘em, en the sleeves uv the coat quit so high up et purty nigh all uv my knit wristers wuz showin’. Ef they'd a ben white ’stid uv red, it wouldn’t a ben so bad. 'Baout eight o'clock Hiram he hired us one uv them taxin’ cabs, They wuz a little dingus onto it tew tell us haow far we wuz travelin’, en I'll be durned ef we didn’t kiver eighty miles inless’n ten minnits. Jee- rusalem, haow them things kin scoot! “The opery house wuz purty nigh full up when we got thar, but the manager knowed Hiram en I wuz comin’, I reckon, cuz they’d kep us tew good seats. The manager, he sez, ‘Cum right down in the or- chestry’; but I tole Hi I didn’t want tew set with the fiddlers en all them, so the manager he giv us seats in the front pew instid. He sez, ‘’Ere, gentlemen, you're in Hay.’ Thet made me a little mite mad; but Hi, he sez the feller wuz an Englishman en hed his aitches dislocated, and thet he meant A. I wuz sorry thet he hed tew be managin’ when he hed thet trouble, but I didn’t say no more abaout it. “Wall, they wuz a woman set- tin’ in front uv me thet purty nigh spilt the hull opery. When she'd tuck off her coat she’d made a mistake en took her waist along with it. She hedn’t a stitch left onto her back but a pair uv silk gallus but she didn’t seem ter comicbooks.com