Judge, 1915-03-06 · page 17 of 24
Judge — March 6, 1915 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Main Content:** This is primarily a page of humorous verse and advertising, not a political cartoon. **"The Limit" Poem:** A satirical piece by Berton Braley about tipping culture in early 20th-century America. The speaker complains he's forced to tip everyone—barbers, waiters, bellhops, shoeshine boys, chauffeurs, and manicurists—yet draws a defiant line: he refuses to tip the washroom boy, treating this petty act of resistance as a point of principle. The joke satirizes the absurdity and exhaustion of America's expanding tipping expectations, which had become socially compulsory despite the speaker's limited means. **Remaining Content:** Brief humorous anecdotes ("Egg View Notes," "Hunches," "Lights") and a substantial advertisement for the American Telephone & Telegraph Company celebrating the newly completed transcontinental telephone line connecting New York and San Francisco—positioned as a technological marvel. **Context for Modern Readers:** Tipping in this era was becoming an American social obligation that frustrated working-class people, making Braley's poem resonate with contemporary anxieties about economic pressure and social expectations.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
=<-@P ce en ee eee ee ee ee eee eT On Ont a we, CReSe) la Lali ad = | The Limit SMALL change I can never save; In lackeys’ pockets it doth clink. tipping habit holds me slave; Tie eters bind me, link by link. I'm weak—a fact I may not blink— no courage to employ; | yet there are depths I cannot sink— [will not tip the washroom boy ! i barber for my shave, Le alten hatboy and the gink Who shines my shoes; I cannot brave ‘The bellhop’s wrath, but slip him chink. I dare not from the chauffeur slink Without a tip, nor from the coy Young dame who keeps my nails so pink; Bat I won't tip the washroom boy ! ‘Abas that swart and stealthy knave Who fills the washbow! to the brink Whenas my hands I wish to lave! Who comes with guileful smile and wink And gives me scented soap! I think He only does it to annoy Of nuisances he is the ‘‘kink."" I will not tip the washroom boy ! This high resolve naught shall destroy. Except to tip him in the drink, I will not tip the washroom boy! —Berton Braley. Egg View Notes Tink Nitz is arranging to put up a livery bam in the near future. He will have a stall for collectors and agents. Some fancy-looking new time tables ar- rived at the station the first of the week, so Witt Larcom has wrote off already after further particulars and booklets about sev- eral extensive touring trips which he won't take. —Leslie Van Every. Hunches “Qutside of that I'm all right,’’ said the fat, as he avoided the trap. The latest folding bed transforms into a dining table. But with bread going up like an express elevator, please go ’way and let me sleep. No efficient army would ever try to cap- ture Russia, because so many unnecessary steppes would have to be taken. When the champion jockey grew too fat to ride, his worshipers gave him a diamond horseshoe with these apt words, ‘Your gain is our eternal loss."* —C. L. Edson. Lights Mr. Pickleliliy came home from his club one morning about five o’clock. He entered his happy home, crept up the stairs softly, $0 as not to awaken his spouse, then felt for the switch to turn on the electric light. He could not find it, and in the darkness stumbled over a chair. “What's that?"* came a voice from the One Policy At the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, the exhibit of the Bell System consisted of two telephones capable of talking from one part of the room to another. Faint as the transmission of speech then was, it became at once the marvel of all the world, causing scientists, as well as laymen, to ex- claim with wonder. Starting with only these feeble in- struments, the Bell Company, by persistent study, incessant experimen- tation and the expenditure of immense sums of money, has created a new art, inventing, developing and perfecting; making improvements great and small in telephones, transmitter, lines,cables, switchboards and every other piece of apparatus and plant required for the transmission of speech. As the culmination of all this, the Bell exhibit at the Panama-Pacific Exposition marks the completion of a Trans-continental Telephone line three thousand four hundred miles long, joining the Atlantic and the Pacific and carrying the human voice instantly and distinctly between New York and San Francisco. This telephone line is part of the Bell System of twenty-one million miles of wire connecting nine million telephone stations located everywhere throughout the United States. Composing this System, are the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and Associated Companies, and connecting companies, giving to one hundred million people Universal Service unparalleled among the na- tions of the earth. | AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH GOMPANY AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES One System Universal Service HOTEL MARIE BROADWAY, 66th and 67th STREETS Life iB be “Where in the deuce are the lights in this house?” snarled Picklelilly, trying to put a bold face on the matter. P “Lights!"" cried Mrs. Picklelilly scath- ingly. “Pull up the blinds!"” =u +t G. Hays. shops and theatres. Per Day Upward. Suites, $4.00 Per Day RESTAURANT OF UNUSUAL EXCELLENCE GTEUATED in the most convenient location in town, Modern in every detail, absolutely fireproof, within ten minutes’ of the leading department stores, Convenient to Pennsylvania and Grand Central Depots. Rooms with Running Water, $1.50 Per Day Upzward. ANTOINETTE NEW YORK CITY Rooms, with Bath, $2.00 Upward. H. STANLEY GREEN, Manager comicbooks.com