Judge, 1914-12-12 · page 9 of 24
Judge — December 12, 1914 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of humor content: **"How to Treat a Furnace"** (main article by Lee Shippey): A humorous anthropomorphization of furnace maintenance. The "joke" treats a furnace like a temperamental person—it responds better to gentle, kind treatment ("sweetheart," "darling") than to aggressive poking and swearing. This is gentle domestic satire about household management, likely resonating with readers who maintained coal furnaces. **"Dangers of the Hunt"** (top illustration): A hunting scene showing chaos and mishap, accompanying the caption about a man who "would exchange places with a woman any day—and she took him up." This appears to be slapstick humor about gender role reversal—a man willing to trade places discovers the "danger" of women's responsibilities (the illustration suggests accident or injury). **"To Sibyl"** (poem): A trivial romantic verse making a pun: the speaker loves Sibyl in her silk dresses, but since tin is now used to thicken silk (likely a WWI-era metal rationing reference), Sibyl becomes "canned chicken"—wordplay on tinned/canned goods. The overall tone is light domestic and romantic humor typical of early 20th-century satirical magazines.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
How To Treat a Furnace By LEE SHIPPEY TREAT your furnace kindly. Let your watchwords as a furnace tender be gentleness and uplift. Be firm with your furnace, but always gentle. Some per- sons imagine that the way to make a furnace behave properly is to first shake it violently, and then maul the life out of the remaining coals with the poker. They try chastisement when they should try gentleness and uplift, and only succeed in packing the coals harder and destroying ven- tilation, the secret of successful fur- nace tending. Nothing responds more readily to uplift than does a furnace fire. When, in the early morning, you wish to arouse the furnace fire from its slum- bers, you should first shake it gently, then gently tickle the ribs of the grate with the poker to make venti- lation more perfect, and then crack the top crust with a lever-like, uplift- ing use of the poker. Ina minute the fire will be wide awake and in good humor, laughing and sticking out its tongues of flame at you in merriment. Never swear at your furnace, no matter how it annoys you. That will make it sulky and obstinate. You never saw a furnace which was sworn at often which was not frequently sulky and obstinate. Now, did you? It is advisable to take the directly opposite tack. I know a man who always addresses his furnace as ‘‘sweet- heart’? or ‘‘darling,’”? and he assures me the plan works to perfection. DANGERS OF THE HUNT “‘Maybe it doesn’t really make the fur- nace warm up the way it seems to,’’ he frankly admits. ‘Maybe the mere suggestion just keeps me from losing my temper and hammering my fire to pieces, But, anyway, the results are ex- cellent. Savvy?” cURED . One of those fellows who would exchange places with a woman any day—and she took him up. To Sibyl When clad in silks my Sibyl glides, My deepest love for her abides— Her rhythmic grace my wit decides. Since tin they use our silks to thicken, So thus it is my thoughts now quicken To say that Sibyl is ‘‘canned chicken’’! comicbooks.com