Judge, 1914-08-01 · page 11 of 24
Judge — August 1, 1914 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate pieces of satirical writing rather than political cartoons. **"Grandmother's Romance"** (left) is a humorous essay mocking women's illogical behavior—specifically a woman who takes the longest possible route to get somewhere, and another who claims she'd "cultivate" a poor man (implying romantic investment in an unpromising partner). The satire targets female romantic and financial reasoning as contradictory and foolish. **"From a Sinner's Diary"** (right) is a cynical column by "Lynette Freemire" offering misanthropic observations: the narrator is lonely because people who know less are tiresome and those who know more feel the same way. It ends with pseudo-intellectual musings on eugenics (a disturbing topic popular in early 20th-century discourse) and random absurdist humor (comparing shorthand to upside-down black gulls). Both pieces reflect *Judge* magazine's satirical style: mocking social pretensions, gender relations, and offering darkly comic social commentary typical of early 20th-century American humor magazines.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
GRANDMOTHER'S ROMANCE KNOW a woman who, when she starts ~ after anything, starts right in the opposite direction, notwithstanding it’s twenty-five thousand miles around to it that way, and then she approaches from the other side. I know a woman who says if she had a man who wouldn’t give her any money, she'd cultivate him. Suppose she had no cultivator? Suppose his soil was so poor From a Sinner’s Diary it would raise nothing—not even a dollar —no matter how much care (housekeep- ing) or fertilizer (cooking) or irrigation (charm) she applied? People who know less than I do tire me. The ones who know more feel the same. Hence I’m alone mostly. If I had made myself, I should have been so charming that—well, most likely I should have been gobbled up long ago. As it is, if I’m good at anything now, it’s one thing more than another. Shorthand makes me think of the gulls on Lake Michigan. That is, it would if the gulls were black and flew upside down. If there is a weak spot in the founda- tion of eugenics, it’s too much would and too little fire. —Lynette Freemire. comicbooks.com