Judge, 1915-03-06 · page 10 of 24
Judge — March 6, 1915 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate pieces of social satire typical of early-20th-century humor magazines. **"Little Last Things":** A husband (Harbison) complains about his wife's chronic lateness to lunch. She responds with an exhaustive catalog of domestic emergencies—baking, phone calls, a child's injury, servants' incompetence, clothing repairs, her son's liniment needs—that made departure impossible. The satire targets both spouses: the husband's obliviousness to household complexity, and the wife's admission that women's lives are consumed by endless trivial domestic duties. The joke's point is that what men dismiss as "little last things" actually constitute the entire substance of middle-class women's days. **"Darwinian":** A brief joke about evolution. When asked if man descended from apes, someone quips the descent might have gone "the other way around"—suggesting humans have devolved into ape-like behavior. This reflects contemporary debates about Darwinism. **Bottom cartoon:** A man forces a child to hold an umbrella in rain while he stays dry—dark humor about parental selfishness. These reflect period anxieties about gender roles and intellectual trends.
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“Little Last Things ” 66] ATE, as usual,"’ said Harbison, with a frown, when his wife appeared in the waiting-room of the restaurant in which they were to lunch together. ‘You said that you would be here promptly at one o’clock, and it is now eleven and a half minutes past one. Why is it that you women never can be punctual?" “LT thought I would be here on time, Ned, > but there were so many little last things to be done. I had one of your favor- ite cakes in the oven that I had made myself, and I was afraid that it would be spoiled if I left it for our stupid maid to decide when it was baked enough, so I stayed to take it out of the oven myself, Then the telephone rang, and I had to talk to the chairman of our local history committee of the woman's club; and then Susie came in crying because she had fallen and skinned her elbow, and I had to see to her, and after that the groceryman came for the Saturday order, and then I had to put a new lace in my shoe, and after that the maid came to me to have me tell her how to make the pudding I wanted her to make for dessert to-night. Then I had to tell her how to make the sauce for it, and after that I had to sew a dang- ling button on my coat, for I was afraid I would lose it if I didn't, and I couldn't have duplicated it; and then Johnnie wanted me to rub some liniment on his back, for he had hurt it playing football, and I wish he wouldn't play that rough game. Then the telephone rang again, and just as I was all ready to start, I smelled something burning in the kitchen, and I ran down and found it was a vessel of rice the maid had let boil dry. After that I had to run down and shut the furnace drafts, for it was about ninety ACTPTERD-- A woman has so many little last things to do when s to do, Ned."* Thank the Lord!"' under his —MW. in the house, she is going out that a man never To which Ned uttered a pious breath, Darwinian **Are you convinced that man descended from the apes?"’ “No; but I've thought that it might have been the other way around."’ “* What are you crying for, my little man?"’ “* Wa-000-0-0 ! He's makin’ me hold the umbrelly, and he’s gettin’ all the wet!"