Judge — August 23, 1913 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AS S s x xX The Rude and Uncultured Mouse HE TALENTED editor of this page (sounds of loud laughter and boister- ous conduct on the rear seats) has noticed by the papers that a Kansas wife is suing for divorce because her husband often brings home live mice and turns them loose in the house. No husband should act in this way. We “WHEN A MOUSE 18 UNDER THE TABLE” wish it known that we frown upon the practice of bringing unknown mice home and turning them loose, to wander where they may. In our mind's eye we can pic- ture the feelings of the wife, as she stands in the middle of the floor after her husband has liberated the well-known and familiar quadrupeds. No doubt she has just laid in a fresh supply of groceries and is wondering if the rodents will gnaw through the pasteboard box and get into the oatmeal. There is nothing more humiliating than to open a box of oat- meal before company, to find that an ill- mannered mouse has taken up quarters in it and built a bungalow of odds and ends of waste paper. Then, when your indig- nation is aflame and you most want the mouse, it is gone. Even though you saw the mouse scam- pering across the floor of the kitchen, you could not be sure that it was the guilty party. If you advanced upon it to teach it a lesson and laid it out quivering in the middle of the floor, you could never be quite sure that you had caught the right one, and ever afterward you might be haunted by the fear that innocent blood was on your hands. WATCHING ‘OUR FUNNY WORLD GO BY ' There is nothing more humiliating, when you are lingering at the table after a meal, discussing the affairs of the day, than to have a mouse run across the floor and under the table, out of sight. Even though you have had the mouse a long time and can trust it implicitly, you can- not be certain that the little creature will return quietly to the kitchen. There is always the haunting fear that the mouse may have grown callous and may begin gnawing the slip- pers of a guest. A mouse gnawing a guest's slippers is enough to make even the most placid temperament nervous. It makes no dif- ference how much you have come to trust the mouse, you are bound to feel that it might do something un- worthy of its better self. A hostess cannot help pic- turing the surprise that would come over the face of her guest when she gets home and finds that a part of her heel is gone. The strain, when a mouse is under the table selecting a heel, is bound to tell on a sensitive and refined wife. Personally, we do not blame the wife for getting a divorce. A husband who* will bring strange mice home is no gen- tleman. A Substitute at Work THE OTHER night a delicatessen store pro- prietor in Omaha, Nebraska, smelled gas. Arising, he lighted a match and’ started to search for the leak. His wife is now waiting on the customers, Whenever we hear a disturbance on the floor above as if they had come for the piano, we know that our neighbor is be- ing sad. He has a way, when a wave cf sadness strikes him, of throwing tke kitchen utensils down the airshaft. When an egg beater goes, we know that things haven’t been very bright that day, and when the roasting pan goes, we know that every cloud in the business has had its silvery lining stripped bare and thrown over the back fence into his neighbor's chicken yard. Often in a fit of melancholia the man throws the sugar bowl at his wife. We hold that this is no way for a husband to act. It has been our experience that in the more cultivated homes this is not well thought of. We don’t care who dis- agrees with us, we are firm in our belief that no husband with the highest ideals would hurl a sugar bow! at his wife or pull her off the sofa by her hair. We wish it known that we frown upon the practice. Our trenchant pen shall ever be directed against the custom. There is no use in bringing influence to bear against us—we shall remain firm and continue to wield our vitriolic pen against this institution. We are ada- mant. There is no need to cavil with us. You had just as well save your cavil. We will continue to fight the practice as long as there is breath in our body. “WB KNOW THAT OUR NEIGHBOR 18 BEING SAD” Left-handed Happiness HE MEDICAL men have discovered that training the left hand exer- cises the right lobe of the brain and tends to make people more cheerful. Aman in the flat directly over us has very little use for his left hand. He has never cultivated it. It is virgin soil. He takes his sadness out on his wife. We wish somebody would tie the gen- tleman’s right hand down to his side. The melancholy man is thick through the shoulders and has red hair, On the day that the experiment is tried out, we will be busy and cannot attend; but our col- umns will always be in the forefront to praise the good work. comicbooks.com