Judge, 1914-05-02 · page 21 of 41
Judge — May 2, 1914 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Illustration: "The Tanglefoot Tango"** A satirical cartoon mocking the "tango craze" sweeping early 1900s society. The frenzied dancers performing an exaggerated, ungainly dance are compared to centipedes—the "tanglefoot" being a humorous reference to both the dance's chaotic leg movements and a brand of flypaper. The joke: fashionable people are acting like insects caught on sticky paper, slavishly following a ridiculous trend. **"A Frustrated Romance" (poem by John Kendrick Bangs)** A satirical commentary on nouveau riche materialism and women's mercenary attitudes. A suitor asks a young woman to accompany him; she agrees—but only if he provides: an automobile, beach cottage, pearls, expensive Parisian gowns, yacht, mansion staff, and endless money. The punchline: the "poor coward" flees rather than commit to such demands. The satire targets both female greed and male cowardice, reflecting anxieties about modern courtship and wealth-obsession in upper-class society.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Les danseuers imitants le sussurrement des mouches. The dancers imitating the buzzing of flies. TANGO DES CENTiPEDES. THE TANGLEFOOT TANGO. A Frustrated Romance By JOUN KENDRICK BANGS as HERE are you going, my pretty maid?”’ “I'm going to Newport, kind sir,’* she said. “May [ go with you, my pretty maid?” “Surely you may, kind sir,”” she said. “If you can provide me a swift machine, wits whirring wheels and pace that’s een, And furnish the same with gasoline; If you can procure me a cottage fair, On a site by the sea, with a frontage where Society passing will know I’m there; If you can supply me with flawless pearls, Like those that are worn by the other girls When out in the rout and the social whirls; And gowns of the best in the latest style That Paris provides full of artful guile For all of society's rank and file; If so you will furnish a yacht of steam, To ride on the waters that brightly gleam To help entertain the cremo-de-la-cream ; If you can establish a menage fine, With butlers galore and maids ninety- nine, And a blue-ribbon chef when I wish to dine; And give me a purse like that purse of old The fairies filled every day with gold, And the more you spent all the more *twould hold— I guess you may go with me, sir,’’ she said, With a merry flirt of her pretty head— But he, the poor coward! had long since fled! (Suggere par un papier mouche bien connu.) (Suggested by a well-known flypaper.) And Then It Was—— Rabelais, Balzac, De Maupassant and a large group of the old-time writers of broad stuff re- garded with glooming brows the newcomer. “Say !’’ growled Rabelais. ‘‘You were one of the people who are writing the world's present crop of stories, poems and plays, weren't you? Well, we want to tell you that until your success showed us how far we fell short of being truly wicked in our work, hell hadn’t much tor- ment for us.’” “Did you notice Mrs. Bluffington’s va- cant stare?” “Yes. She is probably following her train of thought.’’ comicboké.com 7