Judge, 1916-01-29 · page 7 of 28
Judge — January 29, 1916 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical pieces from Judge magazine: **Top cartoon:** A comedic sketch mocking a medieval knight (Launcelot of the Round Table) arrested by a New York patrolman. The satire operates on class/cultural collision: a chivalric legend attempts to defend women from "improper" men, but gets arrested instead. The officer dismisses him as a "cabyray performer" (cabaret act)—the joke being that high-minded medieval virtue looks absurd in modern urban immigrant working-class reality, where the women are actually willing companions of their "gentlemen friends." **"Pink Overalls" piece:** A satirical essay protesting rumors that wartime fabric shortages will force factory workers to wear pink work clothes. The satire is ironic: the author mock-laments that "esthetic" pink would be inappropriately beautiful for manual laborers—suggesting that beauty and labor are incompatible, that working-class dignity requires drabness. The poem's final image of workers in pink at day's end is presented as absurdly, inappropriately lovely. Both pieces employ working-class characters and immigrant dialects for humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Horatio—What's on your mind, old man? performing geese act. lot went at them with the flat of his sword blade. Despite futile attempts at resistance’and feminine shricks, he had landed several smart raps when—thwack! a locust club landed upon his helmet from the rear and the good knight went down, dazed. “Waddya mean, startin’ a rough house on my ?” bellowed Patrolman Hogan. ** Who started ut?” he demanded of the girls. “He did,” they chorused indignantly, pointing to the prostrate knight. “We was just walkin’ along talkin’ to our gentlemen friends, when the old freak butts in and begins lambastin’ them over the head.” Launcelot listened in amazement. “Who the divil are yez, innyhow?” growled the officer. “Launcelot, of the Round Table,” replied the defender of the fair, rising with dignity—and a throbbing head. “Must be a new kind of cabyray performer,” muttered Hogan. Turning to the girls: “Do yez want to prosecute?” “Mercy, no!” gasped Black Eyes. “If our husbands was to hear of this—— “Yer lucky, Mr. Tin Pants,” congratulated Hogan. ‘Now beat it back to yer feed parlor. Gita move on!” “Verily,” mourned Sir Launcelot. ve changed.”” PAIWATE, MRA UCHTAEAD MANAGER \ Polydore—After six months out of work. here I get an offer of an engagement for my Horatio—What's the grouch then? ‘ Polydore—I've—I've eaten “em. Pink Overalls WING to the scarcity of certain dyestuffs, rumor hath it, our workmen will soon be reduced to pink overalls. A simple enough statement in itself; but the fact has other possibilities connected with it. The esthetic is never connected with labor. In the sweat of honest toil Art is drowned. The beauties of nature are of no con- cern to the earnest man who is busily employed in marring those same beauties with a pick. The song of the robin is lost in the clamor of the riveting machi And now we are to clothe our sturdy laborers in pink—esthetic pink! Delicate pink! The color of the ; the tint of the wild rose! It can’t be done! gaze with equanimity on the vision that rises of Patrick O’Dough- erty shouldering his shovel and sallying forth to work on the Ninth Avenue sewer clad like rosy-fingered Eros. If the color of overalls must change, make ’em green, yellow, black—anything but pink! What's this that I see as the sun sinketh low, And sheds his long rays over city and pl A sprinkling of roses? A cherry-bloom snow The gleam of a rainbow that shines aftet in? Or say- it be that there comes to my view \ peach-blossom shower strewn down from the bough? No—it’s knocking-off time for the skyscraper’s crew, And workmen are wearing pink overalls now! F. Gregory Hartswick. comicbooks.com