Judge, 1914-02-14 · page 5 of 24
Judge — February 14, 1914 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon ("Encouragement"):** The top illustration depicts a snowy rural scene with a horse-drawn sleigh carrying passengers in heavy rain/snow. A figure walks alongside holding an umbrella, while another stands to the left. The caption reads: "Cheer up, mister! Reckon it'll turn to snow again afore mornin'." This appears to be gentle humor about rural pessimism—a countryman offering dubious "encouragement" during miserable weather. **The Article:** "Concerning Habit" by Dixon Merritt discusses how habits enslaved him, using the extended metaphor of wearing uncomfortable shoes. He illustrates how people tolerate daily discomforts without questioning them—the left shoe always pinches, yet he never changes either shoe. The piece is philosophical commentary on human acceptance of unnecessary suffering due to habit rather than necessity. Neither the cartoon nor article addresses specific political events or figures.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Cheer up, mister! AN IS more of a fettered slave to his habits than to his wife. If Publius Syrus had put it that way, he might have spared himself the platitude, ‘‘Powerful in- deed is the empire of habit.’ Having been a chattel slave to a Roman master, however, it is entirely probable that he did not care to speak of slavery. You can’t blame him. Even a member of the assembly who has been bought and sold several times does not like to discuss it. These, however, are mere introductory remarks and need not be remarked far- ther. Broadly and more or less generally speaking, introductory remarks are or- dinarily too remarkable. What was Started to be said is that, speaking from a wholly concrete and purely personal standpoint, I have proved the absolute truth of the statement first hereinbefore made. A man who is a slave to his wife might not be permitted to go to bed with ENCOURAGEMENT Concerning Habit By DIXON MERRITT his shoes on, but it would make no mate- rial difference to the wife which shoe he removed first. If his soul yearned might- ily and his flesh cried out in pounding pain for the removal of the left shoe be- fore the removal of the right shoe, the wife would not prevent it. Yet that is exactly what habit does for me. The pair of shoes of the present wear- ing never did fit comfortably. No pair of shoes ever does. If they do not pinch the toes, they rub the heel or chafe the instep or embrace the ankle a bit more closely than is seemly in public or com- fortable in private. If they do no one of these things, they offend the eye. Of this particular pair of shoes, the right one is all right, but the left one is all—that is to say, the wrong one is all Reckon it'll turn to snow again afore mornin’.” wrong. Would that it had been all left —on the cow from which it came! It hurts everywhere—toes, heel, instep, an- kle, spine, nerves, brain and heart. It never did its worst until yesterday. Up to that time it had merely pounded around from place to place, developing the weak spots. Then it landed on all of them at once. : If you have never had a dentist extract- ing a live nerve with a red-hot wire, the coal man presenting his bill and the boss firing you from your job all at the same time, you can have no idea how that shoe pained me. Itkept at it from nine o'clock in the morning until midnight. At first the moments hadn’t been more than a day long, but, as the hours of the evening wore on, every second was about as long as from the building of the pyramids to the dawn of the millennial day. The in- spired gentleman who wrote that ‘‘one day is as a thousand years’’ would have made the statement much stronger had he worn shoes instead of sandals. But at midnight the end was in sight. comicbooks.com