Judge, 1914-12-26 · page 13 of 25
Judge — December 26, 1914 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical story mocks a "masher"—a man who aggressively pursues women with unsolicited advances. Mosinsky, a wine salesman, approaches an innocent-seeming woman on a train, invites her to dinner at an upscale restaurant, and assumes he'll seduce or impress her. The joke: she's actually a respectable married woman with a large family. When they arrive at the restaurant, her husband and four tall children appear—the "innocence" has trapped him into buying dinner for six people. The satire inverts the typical morality tale: instead of innocence being corrupted, it's the aggressive man who gets punished through his own assumptions and greed. The accompanying advertisement parodies show fashion products. The page satirizes both sexual predation and the comeuppance of entitled men who underestimate women's cunning.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Punishing a Masher se] HAVE just been reading a poem showing that innocence and purity cannot be harmed or contaminated by the worst of demons,’’ said the school teacher to the walking delegate. “That’s right,’’ answered the walking delegate. ‘‘There is my friend Mosinsky, a wine and liquor salesman and a great man of the world. But innocence fried him to a crisp one day. He tells it him- self. “*Mosinsky was on the train; Innocence was just across the aisle from him. She was plump and slightly matronly, yet pink-cheeked and lustrous-eyed. Ske Shuis : A BLUNDER BY THE MAKEUP MAN looked good to Mose. He offered her a paper. “She accepted the paper ‘and read it, and then Mose began conversing, and she was inclined to converse. “As the train pulled into Lumborough, Mose said he would enjoy having the lit- tle lady dine with him at the European oo 6 te = wed A WHY SHE TRUMPED restaurant, a very swell place where you could have anything from frogs’ legs to tapioca meringue, and they charged you according to what you ate. “The lady smiled and held back. Old Mose grabbed her suitcase and said he would take no refusal, “Very well,’ said the lady, ‘if you in- sist.” “When they stepped off the train, the lady instantly exchanged greetings with a tall man, mostly waist. “‘This is my husband,’ she said; ‘and this gentleman has invited us to have din- ner with him,’ she added to her husband. “The man said nothing, but gave Mose his hand on it. “**The man had the longest waist I ever saw,’ Mose told me afterward. Mose hated to think of what it would take to fill it. **And then two long, tall girls and two long, tall boys loomed up in the back- ground. Mose wondered what they were sticking around for. When the perty moved toward the restaurant, those four capacious young people went along, too, 6 HER PARTNER'S TRICK and they all went into the filigreed res- taurant and took their seats. “*We are so lucky!’ said the lady. ‘We are just moving into Lumborough, and pa and the children came on ahead, and I knew they wouldn’t have a thing out at the new house toeat. I expect you boys are hungry,’ she added, addressing the two masculine chasms. “*We are,’ agreed the boys. “*And I expect you girls didn’t have any breakfast,’ the little lady said to the two feminine shafts, with solicitude “*We are all blessed with wonderful appetites,’ said the dear little lady to the sophisticated host. “*Yes,’ said Mose. “And no one fears innocence and purity the way Mose has since the day he paid that bill. He will run a mile if an inno- cent dame gets into the same county with him and he knows it. —Hamitton Pope Galt. The visit of St. Nicholas Each child with rapture thrills. (And I would also have you know It fills pa’s mail with bills.) comicbooks.com