Judge, 1912-08-03 · page 8 of 26
Judge — August 3, 1912 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Judge* magazine contains humorous short pieces about early automobiles and motorists. The top illustration shows people at a seaside pier with boats—captioned "Tide Down-Tied Up"—using nautical language to joke about motor vehicles. The "Motor Chaff" section consists of witty one-liners mocking motorists and cars. Key jokes include: a professor accidentally feeding gasoline to his horse instead of grain; wordplay on "motor buss" (kiss); and complaints about dust kicked up by cars. One piece references a New York traffic cop who supposedly stopped 67 cars single-handedly. The satirical point: automobiles were still novel enough to inspire ridicule about their unreliability, the pretentiousness of owners, noise pollution, and danger to pedestrians. The "Burning Question" at bottom is unrelated humor about marriage. The central illustration, "As It Looks to the Last Man," appears to show a crowded vehicle, presumably satirizing the chaotic experience of early motoring.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Motor A MOTOR by any other name would smell as usual. Many a motorist is stuck in a road when he is not stuck ‘‘on"’ it. When a motor man courts a motor girl. it is perfectly proper for him to seal his proposal with a motor buss. The man who cannot raise the wind to pay for his motor can at least use it to throw the dust in his TIDE DOWN-TIED UP. Chaff New York hold up sixty-seven touring cars the other day with his right hand. Love, as the old proverb tells us, may indeed make the world go round, but it won't help a driving wheel much ona mired road. The most absent-minded man we ever knew is a college professor who fed his old family horse on two quarts of gaso- line the other night and filled up the tank of his runabout with bran-mash. Neither the horse nor the runabout has been able to work since. Bildad bought a couple of old rubber tires at a rummage sale the other day, and now avers that he is getting his car on the installment plan. Most people have grown so used to the sound of motor horns creditor's eyes. About all the scenery that interests some mo- torists of the present day seems to be what might be called the limousinery. It looks like robbing Peter to pay Paul whena man in order to acquire a motor car mortgages his roof to pay the cellar. There is a wag up in Maine who cannot afford a@ garage and keeps his car in a lean-to. He re- fers to it as his ‘‘gaso- line-to."’ Talk about your Sam- sons—we saw a small, undersized traffic cop in AS IT LOOKS TO THE LAST MAN. that they no longer pay any to them, and a Texas genius sug- gests the substitution of a putty-blower which will shoot persons on the road behind the ear at a dis- tance of sixty yards for them. The plan seems feasible, though doubtful if it makes mo- torists any more popular with the man on the street. A Buming Question. Why do we speak of a married man as Mis- ter? He didn’t! He got her! attention