Judge, 1915-09-18 · page 14 of 28
Judge — September 18, 1915 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes **professional specialization** in early 20th-century American society. The left column's essay by Tod Chenevix mocks how specialists—in medicine, theater, vaudeville, and business—claim expertise in narrowly defined areas, becoming one-trick performers. The humor lies in exposing this as absurd: a medical specialist for each body part, an actress who only knows how to look sad, or a vaudeville performer repeating the same act in legitimate theater. The three small comedic exchanges at top right continue this theme through wordplay and situational humor typical of Judge's style. The football illustration above appears decorative, framing "Some Gains in Football"—likely unrelated editorial content. The bottom photograph, captioned "A Game Not Called on Account of Darkness," shows young people in romantic repose outdoors, suggesting a joke about leisure activities or courtship replacing sports.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SOME GAINS The Specialty SPECIALTY presupposes The specialist works the spe y the sp s s ps ist. The specialist educates the public up ‘to his spe- cialty, thereby creating the requisite de- mand, and thus specialism is established on a firm ba The specially sophisticated patron finds a everywhere. The professions, the a all take great pride in s. Business thrives on the spe- cia cialty. Shops advertise special bargains. The manufacturer is continually introducing some new specialty. The specialty of some hotels is a special luncheon with special cabaret. In medicine it takes all the specialties to cure any simple disorder like a cold, since there is a specialist for cach organ affected, nose, throat, tonsils, bronchial tubes, lungs, head, mouth, chest, and appetite. Sometimes a single symptom has its noted specialist. All human specialists are very “clever,” to drop into theatrical parlance. This is entirely regular and proper, since a bona fide specialist is supposed to know only one thing. For this reason we find some special actors devote them: tage to one thing exclusively, say, the making of a cer- tain kind of face. When you want to see that kind of face, all you have to do is to go and see that specialist. We all feel ac- quainted with the mature movie actress who looks ever so sad on every occasion, and all we have to do when she comes on the screen is to watch her do her specialty. She never fails us. When a really good vaudeville artist goes into the legitimate we recall at once that he is a specialist. Then we are not unreason- ably surprised when he gocs through his well-remembered and particular specialty in his own unique style between each entrance and exit. That is the whole show as far as he is concerned. In fine, any specialty is certainly accepted as the whole thing as far as everybody is concerned. —Tod Chenevix. The better the pay, the better the pleading. No Escape Bridges—Banks was born a fool, I suppose. River anyway. —Oh, Banks would have been one IN FOOTBALL Taken at His Word He (passionately) I would go to the ends of the earth for you! She (calmly) —Good-bye!