Judge, 1913-10-11 · page 12 of 24
Judge — October 11, 1913 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon:** The top illustration depicts a bustling early 20th-century downtown street scene titled "THE HIGH COST OF LIVING—WILL IT COME TO THIS?" It shows towering buildings, theaters, automobiles, and crowds—satirizing urban economic anxiety. The caption suggests fears that rising costs might force families into chaotic, automobile-dependent lifestyles rather than stable domestic life. **The Story:** A dialogue between "Billy" and "Pansy" satirizes the "Modern Woman" of the era—a female character who rejects traditional domestic subservience. She advocates for eugenics (selective breeding for "physical perfection"), demands educational equality, and refuses to be a submissive wife. Billy represents conventional masculine bewilderment at these progressive ideas. **The Satire:** The piece mocks both the modern woman's emerging independence and Billy's outdated expectations. The brief legal joke at bottom continues the theme: a prisoner's refusal to obey mirrors the broader social resistance to authority and convention. **Context:** This reflects 1910s-era anxieties about women's suffrage, changing gender roles, and eugenic pseudoscience presented as progressive thinking.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Zh gn ae f f Pera peso one | Seer | ran pat) HH a Oo am was Ta et oe eats | jam mi eres |EATRE THE TREASURY PRP, THE DIPLOMAT. ice Tee he EECY. OF NAVY race bye } tex op is aah, ATIRST CLASS Rt HABERDASHERY i i Wilt BE OPENeo } HERE Abour me FIRET, OF Peron Ovrse his astonishment. Then he looked at her again. In spite of these things, she was good to look at. “Then you don’t believe in a happy home, domestic bliss and all that?’’ “TI surely do, if the bliss doesn’t cost the wife too much—more than it is worth.”” “T don’t just get you, Pansy.”’ “Well, I don't care for that domestic- ity where the husband is a little tin god and the wife a subject creature, slavishly anticipating all his whims and sugaring his weaknesses."’ “Oh! I guess you’re what they call A Modern Woman, eh, Pansy?"’ He moved nearer and cried emotionally, ‘*But I love you just the same!"’ **Do you? I haven't developed half of my beliefs.’’ bie ou've got other ideas?"’ “Lot He hesitated. ‘‘You'’ve been so candid, Pansy, you'll for- give another question. If you should some time marry, would you—ah—like kiddies?” Billy blushed, but Pansy didn’t. “Of course, incertain circumstances. I believe ineugenics."’ He looked bewildered. ‘‘I've heard something of it. That means a union of persons physically perfect?"’ “That's one idea of it.” “*Well, we'd pass on that, I hope!’’ He threw out his chest proudly. “But there’s another side to it—a mental side. Mere phys- ical fitness might mean children who would be great football players and nothing else, or phenomenal human specimens of the sort they exhibit in side shows—large, flabby and brainless giants and giantesses, you know Billy was bewildered. She had turned her back to him and was standing in a strange attitude, chin in hand. “But can’t we be just friends,”’ he pleaded, ‘‘until’’—— “Yes,” said she, turning; ‘‘until you finish youreducation."” And she gave him a tiny kiss that had electricity in it. There also was a suggestion of jiu jitsu behind it. He was chastened and he wondered; but he was not without hope. His Defense “Didn't I tell you the last time you were here never to let me see your face again?’ roared the justice. “Yes, judge,’ pleaded the prisoner at the bar; “but this derned fool of a cop won't let me turn my back on ye."? Refusing to take no for an answer sometimes is a goo? rule in business as well as in a love chase, comicbooks.com <4 ————