Judge, 1913-06-28 · page 18 of 25
Judge — June 28, 1913 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes college students' escalating financial demands on their parents. The piece presents a letter from a son who claimed to need nothing before leaving for college but now requests numerous "little incidentals"—laundry bags with monograms, multiple pillows, expensive Bagdad couch covers, fine dishware, alcohol lamps, sweaters, gym suits, tennis shoes, fancy jackets, fraternity pins, and club dues totaling significant sums. The satire targets the pretentious materialism and peer pressure among college students of the era. By framing excessive requests as casual "incidentals," the letter mocks how students justified luxury spending to their parents. The detailed list—each item justified by peer comparison ("the other fellows have...")—exposes vanity masquerading as necessity. The joke is that "incidentals" had become the student's primary financial concern, not education.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Whittier Sea Gate, New York Harbor maintained by the local cottage community. may be leased for the season, Rooms with private bath and porch. Rooms are available in nearby cottages to those who prefer them, service and priv- ileges of the Inn being the same. Telephone Rates and Booklet Upon Application An Ideal Hotel Home for Summer 7 ieee The Inn is situated in a private park | Entire cottages (including Hotel Service) A clean, broad beach with ample bathing fa- | cilities. Tennis, baseball, rowing and sailing. Private boat service to and from New York City. Also frequent train service to Brooklyn. A Delightful Place—Just 45 Minutes by Private Boat from New York Inn Garage In answering advertisements please mention JUDGE. It will be appreciated. His « Incidentals” HE HAD been in college two weeks when his eager and expectant par- ents in the old home nest received the following letter from him in regard to “a few incidentals’ he had discovered that he would need, in addition to the things he had taken from home: “Dear Ones at Home—I thought that I had about everything I would need when I left home, but I find, after having been here this long, that there are two or three little incidentals that I ought to have, and I hope that you will get them tome ag soon as you can, as I cannot very well get along without them. Please send a good-sized laundry bag that I can hang on the inside of my closet door. The other fellows have their initials on theirs in a fancy monogram, and sister Belle might work mine on the bag you must send me. Send also three or four pillows, with either my monogram or the name of the college on them. I know that I brought six couch pillows with me, but some of the fellows have as many as twenty, and I would like at least four more; and I wish you could send me a nice Bagdad cover for my couch. Nearly all of the other fellows have them, and that green felt cover I brought from home looks pretty cheap compared with the Bagdads. Please send also about six spoons and three or four knives and forks and a few nankins and five or six pretty teacups and a lemon squeezer and five or six small plates and an alcohol lamp, The fellows all have such things in their rooms, to use with some light refresh- ments when the other fellows drop in during the evening, and I don’t like to be behind the other fellows in hospitality. And I need a new sweater to wear on our hikes and to slip on to keep me from catching cold after playing ball. Then I simply must have a gym suit and a pair of tennis shoes, and most of the fellows have fancy jackets to wear in their rooms. Please send me one and put the price with the other things for which I mean to pay dad with the first money I earn after I get out of college. Then I need three dollars for the pin of a fraternity I have joined, and I will have a good deal better standing here if I join a certain club, the dues of which are twelve dollars a year. The fellows want me to join another club that will cost ten a year for dues, but I thought I would write to you about it first. Tell dad that I will give him my note, with interest at six per cent., if he will let me have the money for these two clubs it will be a help to me to join. He might as well make the note out for twenty-five dollars, as I need the other three for several little things I find I ought to have. I wish that you would put in a box of eats with the other things. Also a couple of extra towels, and if dad can send me my next month’s allowance acouple of weeks in advance, I wish he would. Little incidental needs keep com- ing up every day, bat if you will send comicbooks.com