Judge, 1913-03-29 · page 13 of 24
Judge — March 29, 1913 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the early 1900s "physical culture" movement—a fitness fad promoted by celebrities like Eugen Sandow. Colonel Beanfugle has joined a physical-culture club and brings home expensive exercise equipment (punching bags, pulley weights, rowing machines, medicine balls) he's excited to use at home. His wife Mrs. Beanfugle responds with cutting sarcasm, exposing the absurdity: he claims poverty when she needs money for clothes, yet spends on gym gadgets. She sarcastically suggests using actual household furniture and labor (hauling coal) as "exercise," and threatens to patent his ridiculous regimen for profit while denying him any share. The joke mocks both the fitness-obsessed husband and the commercialization of the physical-culture industry—showing how such fads prey on vanity while draining household finances. The smaller cartoon below presents an unrelated domestic joke about a new baby.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AND “What is all this leading up to?’’ queried Mrs. Beanfugle suspiciously. ‘*Have you been swimming in waters infested with physical-culture sharks? And what was that bundle you dropped on the porch when you came in?’* “That was a little apparatus I got as a bonus with my cer- tificate of membership in a physical-culture club,’’ said Colonel Beanfugle, bringing in a bundle and unwrapping it. ‘‘Here’s a new model punching bag, costing only twenty dollars, and some pocket pulley weights, to be attached to any door at home or at the office. Here is an ingenious vest-pocket device, which can be put together instantly and used for strengthening the grip and making the muscles of the forearm stand out like whipcord. Here is aknock- down rowing machine, which can be put together in ten seconds. This is a collapsible medicine ball, which you and I will toss to and from each other on the lawn or in the cellar every morning. Here is a book, giving various daily exercises which I am to go through with, using the dining-room farniture in INGENUOUS Father—Well, Mary, you have a brand-new baby sister. Mary—Oh, papa! can I be the first to tell mamma ? NOW lieu of gymnasium fixtures. For instance, I lie on my back and toss the dining-room table in the air six times with my feet. Then I fasten three dining-room chairs together and spin them in either hand for five minutes. Then’’—— “Then I suppose you take my cut-glass cabinet and juggle that, provided I have not slain you, as you should be slai interposed Mrs. Beanfugle. ‘‘Here I’ve been trying to get a hundred for six weeks, for a new afternoon gown, and you've always met me with the excuse that you're overdrawn at the bank. And now you invest in a lot of calisthenic junk like this and come home and tell me that I’m going to toss the medicine ball with you on the lawn or in the cellar. You will please telephone to the bank and stop the payment on that check, and then write out another for me, so I can get some duds that are worthy the Beanfugle name, Meantime, if you’re spoiling for physical culture, you can walk to the office every day and put a dime in the bank for me, representing the street-car fare you save. I'll devote that fund to some good purpose, like getting anew veil. Or you can haul in the coal, instead of paying a man to do that work. There’s a ton out there now, waiting the arrival of some future Sandow, and there’s no better time than the present to begin building yourself up. By the time you get that ton of coal thrown into the cellar, I'll have a com- plete daily program of exercises made out for you that'll beat anything Sandow’s press agent ever thought up. I may copy- right the scheme and advertise it and run pictures of your im- mense physical development, showing what Beanfugle’s system will do; but you will not share in the monetary proceeds —not one cent, sir, after the deception you have practiced this day!"’ comicbooks.com