Judge, 1912-08-10 · page 7 of 24
Judge — August 10, 1912 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate satirical pieces from *Judge* magazine: **Top cartoon ("He Never Studied It"):** A professor visits a rural home, overlooking that the family speaks only in dialect—a "language" of colloquial speech he failed to anticipate. The satire mocks educated urbanites encountering working-class rural Americans whose speech patterns they find incomprehensible. **"He Didn't 'Jine 'em'" story:** A music professor seeks lodging, expecting quiet to compose. Uncle Joshua Dodd enthusiastically describes his entire family's musical abilities—each family member playing different loud instruments *simultaneously* every night until midnight. The humor lies in the professor's horror at this cacophony, and the family's obliviousness to how unbearable constant amateur musicmaking would be. The heavy dialect reinforces the rural/urban class divide—the professor clearly regrets his boarding choice. Both pieces exploit period stereotypes of rural Americans as crude, unsophisticated, and socially unaware, while portraying educated city folk as out-of-touch and pretentious.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
pa HE NEVER STUDIED IT. One language the professor overlooked. : ’ code ’ ” He Didn’t ‘‘Jine ’em. the accordium, an’ my boy Bill kin jerk more music out of a fiddle than any other two fellers in this neighborhood! Ninety an’ Nine’ at the same time! She kin do it! Then my darter Suze can outplay any one in these parts on 66] HOPE that you and your family would not object to considerable music,” said Professor De Flute, when he called to see if he could engage board for six weeks at the home of Uncle Joshua Dodd. ‘I am a musical composer and I would want to play a good deal on several instruments while working on some musical compositions Iam to bring out in the autumn. If you are not fond of music I’ ‘Put her there, perfesser!"’ ex- claimed Uncle Josh, as he held out a hand worn large and rough by honest toil. ‘‘Fond of music! Well, perfesser, your lucky star rid high when it sent you here if you want to fall in witha fam'ly fond 0’ music! Music! Us ob- ject to music! Why, perfesser, you see that melodeon over in the corner. Well, if you like music, you want to hear my wife play ‘Old Dan Tucker’ with one hand an’ ‘Yankee Doodle’ with the other, while she sings ‘The “FOR GOODNESS' SAKE!" My son Buck kin put a juice-harp be- tween his teeth an’ play on it with one hand, while he rattles the bones with the other; an’ his sister Belle kin play on the gittar an’ the banjo, an’ her brother Ben, kin play ‘Moneymusk’ on the coronet until you can’t keep your feet still! 1 kin doa mighty good stunt on the harmonicky, an’ if you want to hear music you want to hear us all git goin’ on our diff'rent insterments an’ singin’ from Gospel Hymns Number Six! Glad to have you jine us for the sing we have ev’ry night from seven or eight o'clock to past midnight some nights!"’ -ZzD. In the Shade of a Lemonade Straw. Tinkle, tinkle, bit of ice! Jiminy, but you sound nice, As you clink and clink and fade In a glass of lemonade! comicbooks.com