Judge, 1912-10-26 · page 8 of 24
Judge — October 26, 1912 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes Halloween superstitions and contains two distinct elements: **Main Article**: A tongue-in-cheek essay debunking Halloween folklore. The satire peaks with a jab at Theodore Roosevelt: it claims New Jersey residents believe that if the State Governor peers into a washtub at midnight on Halloween, he'll see the next U.S. President reflected there. The text then sarcastically notes this superstition has been "denounced...as wicked, infamous and misleading by the General Welfare Department of the Sagamore School of Political Research at Oyster Bay, N.Y." (Roosevelt's home)—a pointed mockery suggesting Roosevelt's political machinations or presidential ambitions. **Small Comic**: The bottom illustration shows a grocer and customer discussing black tea "for a funeral," which the customer clarifies isn't green tea. This is a mild joke about funeral propriety or possibly class/taste distinctions. The page's overall tone ridicules both superstition and political pretension, with Roosevelt as the implicit target.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WIDOW’S All LL HALLOWEEN, which comes along annually on the night of October 31st, originally designed to be the Eve of a Saints’ Day and celebrated as such, has become by common usage Hulloeen, or a night given over to gen- eral Hullaballoo, in which children of all ages and sexes disport themselves as though there were no to-morrow. Ghosts of bygone days are said to rise up on Halloween in their former haunts, bring- ing with them so many of the atmos- pheric qualities of their new environ- ment that it serves as an excuse for mortals also to raise Hades as much as they can. There are many superstitions concerning this night when Spirits are abroad, chief among them being one that if a woman—even a grass widow— walks down the cellar stairs at mid- night, with a candle in one hand and a mirror in the other, she will see the face of her future husband's wife re- flected in the mirror’s depths; and in certain sections of New Jersey, even to- day, it is confidently believed that if a Governor of the State peers into the depths of a washtub filled with fresh spring water at any time between ten- thirty-seven p. m. and midnight on Hal- INAPPROPRIATE. Grocer—‘‘And a pound of black tea. green do?" Customer—"' Er—no. Would ‘This is for a funeral."’ MIGHT Halloween loween, he will see the visage of the next President of the United States re- flected there. This superstition has been denounced, however, as wicked, in- famous and misleading by the General Welfare Department of the Sagamore School of Political Research at Oyster Bay, N. Y. A pleasing feature of Halloween is the privilege it confers on persons afflicted with an ingrowing prejudice against another person to lie in wait for the latter on a dark corner and whack him on the back of the neck as he passes with a stocking filled with flour, without making them amenable to the laws gov- erning assault, battery, mayhem or arson. Care, however, must be taken by those indulging ir this playful prac- tice to see that the flour inside the stocking comes within the definition of that edible as set forth in the pure-food laws of the country, and is therefore free from all such deleterious sub- stances as bricks, cobblestones, pieces of scrap iron, plumbers’ materials or comicbooks.com