Judge, 1913-04-12 · page 11 of 24
Judge — April 12, 1913 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Judge magazine page contains three satirical pieces about early 20th-century consumer culture and family life: **"Family Trials"** mocks wives who treat consumer goods like rentals. The wife pressures her husband Jim to request "trial" versions of vacuum cleaners, sewing machines, and cookware from salesmen, then keep them without purchasing. The joke: she then hypocritically suggests adopting a child "on trial"—exposing the absurdity of treating everything, even human welfare, as disposable consumer experiments. **"Horological Psychosis"** is a brief pun about a watch that's "mentally deranged" because it "lost its balance"—wordplay on psychological and mechanical terminology. **"A Poor Provider"** shows a father-son conversation where young Freddie concludes the suitor is a poor provider because he's only given him 17 cents in over a year—satirizing both stingy courtship behavior and children's mercenary thinking. The page satirizes materialism, consumer culture's pervasiveness, and gender dynamics in early 20th-century marriage markets.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AND NO Waiter—A dollar ten, Family Trials by JANE BURR E SEEM to need so many things about this time of year; I've made a list of those we want— try to be sincere About the interest that you show the demonstrator, Jim! Ask lots of questions—that's the way to put it over him. The vacuum-cleaner folks allow three days for you to see How well it works. Three days will do—have one sent out to me. My sewing’s got ’way, ‘way beh this year I want a ‘‘Hummer. The seamstress didn’t fancy those we had on trial last summer. I need a fireless cooker while the weather is so hot; T'll try it out for thirty days—it saves the gas a lot. I'd like to show that highbrow bunch that I’m not such a dub, So send that set of Moliere the day I have my club. And, Jim, we are a selfish pair! I've thought it all the while. I wish you'd pass a foundling home and get a child on trial. SCREEN please. Horological Psychosis ATHER, my watch is mentally de- ranged.”” ‘*Why, my son, a watch can’t be men- tally deranged!"" The jeweler told me to-day Mine is. it had lost its balance. OH, THESE WOMEN! IN SIGHT! Woman—And all my money in “The First National Bank!” A Poor Provider HE daughter of the family had re- ceived a proposal of marriage and the momentous subject was being dis- cussed at the breakfast table the next morning. “Say, dad," spoke up Freddie, ‘*I don’t believe sister's feller will make a good husband.”? **What makes you think so, my boy?"’ asked his father, with smile. ““Why,’? returned Freddie, ‘he’s been coming here for over a year, and in all that time he’s given me only seventeen cents.” En Famille Little Miss Muffet, She sat on a tuffet, Hoping her sweetheart would stay; But along came her mother, Her father and brother, And frightened her suitor away. Patricia—I "ve heard some perfectly awful stories about your husband. Clarice—Ob, do tell them to me! give me a new gown or two, Perhaps I can make him Why not hire the police on the waiter plan—small pay, large tips? comicbooks.com