Judge, 1915-07-31 · page 5 of 28
Judge — July 31, 1915 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Judge* magazine contains an article titled "A Few Little Changes" by J.L. Harbour about a landlord at 453 Eden Avenue. The piece satirizes the common tension between landlords and tenants over home repairs. The landlord complains that a tenant demands numerous fixes—bathroom ceiling whitening, dining-room redecorating, kitchen range replacement, and floor work. The satire lies in the landlord's exasperation: he's already made many repairs himself but finds tenants perpetually unsatisfied, always requesting "something done." The accompanying illustrations show the tenant presenting her list of demands and a humorous scene of a horse refusing to be mounted (captioned about unwillingness to comply). The joke satirizes the endless cycle of maintenance requests that frustrate property owners.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HE OWNER of the house at 453 Eden Avenue looked up with a little sigh when his tenant came in. She was the fourth of his tenants who had come in that morn- ing obsessed with the idea that the spring of the year made it impera- tively necessary that there should be ‘‘re- pai in their flats or houses. He wondered to what extent he would be “*stung’’ by the tenant from Eden Avenue. It was a relief to have her say that she had come to ask for but ‘‘a few slight repairs."" “I'm not one of the fussy kind who are always wanting something done, as you know,"’ she said. ‘*We have lived in your house nearly three months and have done a good many little things ourselves that other tenants would have asked you to do. I have put a number of extra hooks in the bathroom myself and oiled half a dozen creaking doors, and my husband has fixed a lock that would not work and made sev- eral doors stop sticking and things like that aad “A FEW LITTLE CHANGES” By J. L. HARBOUR without coming to you at all. But now, while I am housecleaning, I want a few lit- tle things done that we can’t do ourselves or I wouldn't trouble you. In the first place—let me see."" Here she drew a ‘‘list’’ from her handbag that caused the heart of the landlord to drop to as near his boots as it was pos- sible for it to drop. “To begin with, the bath- room ceiling needs whitening and the floor needs going over with oil, and it would do no harm if the walls had a fresh coat of paint. Then the din- ing-room paper should be changed and the floor gone over, and the kitchen range needs a new lining, and I want to know if you wouldn't be willing to put in a new range of the kind that has the oil stove and the coal range all in one. My sis- ter has one, and it’s so much WRULER + AC. When you dismount to pick up your whip and try to mount again more convenient than having the two ranges separate. The kitchen woodwork needs go- ing over and new linoleum is needed on the floor and the window shades are very shabby. Indeed, they are that all over the house. And I want to know if you would be willing