Judge, 1913-02-01 · page 5 of 24
Judge — February 1, 1913 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main cartoon depicts an early automobile striking a pedestrian, with a physician reassuring the car's owner that the victim is "merely run down"—a dark pun on the automobile's literal act. This satirizes the emerging danger of motor cars in early 20th-century America and society's casual acceptance of traffic casualties. The accompanying articles mock automobile culture: "Mrs. Malsopop's Car" humorously catalogs excessive automotive features as status symbols; "She Hasn't Time" jokes about women's newfound independence through car ownership; and "The Auto in Society" uses verse to critique automobiles as social pretension markers. Overall, the page reflects early anxieties about automobiles as both dangerous public hazards and frivolous wealthy indulgences, while gently mocking the automobile's rapid social infiltration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN Quite a Difference. TH big, red touring car struck a pedestrian, rolling him in the mud and maltreating him in general. The owner ran back, greatly excited, after stopping his car. “Is he dead?’? he asked anxiously of the physician who was working over the victim. Oh, no!’? replied the physician cheerfully. dead; he’s merely run:down."" Mrs. Malaprop’s Car. “TI have,’’ said Mrs. Malaprop, ‘‘a beautiful car, with a cymbeline body, dispatchible and denounceable rims, epilep- tic springs, eclectic starter, infernal expending brakes, auto- cratic wind-shield, black-untram- meled headlights, interval power plant, flash jubilation, three-point indention, three speeds horrid and one perverse, amateur on the dash- board, aggravated ebony rim on the steering wheel, copellerator, throt- tle peddler, sanitary transition, jump-spark intuition, jimpson bear- ings, a set o’ lean gas-primers and all other excessories."’ “He's not She Hasn't Time. She cannot do the things she used To do some years ago. Since her father bought an auto, She hasn't time, you know. RESCUE THE PERISHING. Boy—"' Don't send it there, mister. you don’t want ENDURANCE TEST “Auto Notes.” 'HE editor of an Arkansas newspaper met the pastor of his church on Monday morning and apologized for an error in his Sunday morning edition. The printer had placed this head over the column of church news: ‘‘Local Auto Notes.”” “No apology necessary,”’ replied the minister. ‘‘It’s not very often that a newspaper advises the people that they ought to go to church. Some old sinners about this town have always depended on the preacher to invite them to church, and they pay little attention to him, because they think the invitation is part of his stock in trade; but when a great newspaper like yours expresses the invitation, it sort of wakes them up. Thanks to you, we had an unusually large con- gregation yesterday.” The Auto in Society. The motor car of late has come To be a social sign, And if you wish to have a place Among the superfine, You've got to pay the highest price And drive the finest car, Or never, never in your life Be quite a social star, And yet, Dear friends, do not forget, Though you rise with your automo- bile Or fall, Give to met The gasoline smells ” Just the same in them all. — Wiliam J. Lampton. comicbooks.com