Judge, 1916-04-29 · page 10 of 28
Judge — April 29, 1916 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the servant-girl shortage affecting American households in the early 20th century. Max Markowitz, a skirt manufacturer, and Henry Shapiro, his bookkeeper, discuss the difficulties of hiring and retaining domestic workers ("goils"). The satire targets both employers' exploitation of servants and servants' rising independence. Markowitz complains that workers are unreliable, demanding, and easily lured away by suitors offering steady employment. He mocks the "Intelligence Office" (employment agency) as staffed by women who overestimate their qualifications and ask intrusive personal questions of prospective employers. The dialogue uses Jewish-inflected English dialect, typical of Judge's ethnic humor. The cartoon at top shows Markowitz in a fantastical vehicle pulled by tiny servants, visualizing his frustration. The bottom photograph shows two men in period dress; the caption addresses capital punishment—unrelated to the main story.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
hy Lov “QOIVANT goils ain't a problem, they're a puzzle,” remarked Max Markowitz, the skirt manufacturer, to Henry Shapiro, his bookkeeper and brother-in-law, as they were about to go home, one Thursday night. “If you treat them so good like a mother-in-law before the wedding, they get stuck up, want wages like the sky, and fly away. If you treat them the other way, they anyway. Soa missus is like And even if one in a thousand goils stays on one place for a year, there comes around a fresh milkman or a conductor with a new uniform and gives them a steady job without a missus. There's no use in talking, Henry, even the woist goils are like the best designers, you can’t keep them more than a season “Then don’t keep them,” suggested Henry. jet other goils!” t other goils?”” mockingly repeated Markowitz. ‘You think so easy like getting lots on Long Island, thirty minutes from New York by telephone? I'd like to see you get a goil now! There ain’t none in stock. Every time a lady goes down by Battery Park and sees the ocean, tears run down her cheeks just like by the mov- ing pictures, thinking of them happy days when a ship- ment of kitchen queens would come in from Europe every minute. My Minnie has been running around trying to get a new shikse since last Friday, because Mary our Polish goil had a fight about the Kaiser's mustache with Matilda, the cook, and went away with- out finishing the dishes. But you might so well try to find an actor what ain’t took a picture in his life! You know how tired Minnie is? She wouldn’t even go yes- terday to Mrs. Gartenberg’s whist, where everybody is sure to get a prize, even it is only a cup and sausa. She is so cranky like a creditors’ meeting and cried this morning until I promised her that I would go to an Intelligence Office on Sixth Avenue, and get her a goil. Say, Henry, why do they call it an Intelligence Office?” “How should I know?” questioned Henry. “What do you think I am, a school teache “T think they call it an Intelligence Office,” said Markowitz, “because every goil in there thinks she — ¢ Suburbon knows more than the missus, and "—— i ‘Farmer MARKOWITZ AND HENRY DISCUSS THE DOMESTIC PUZZLE RAR Nu, don’t they?” interrupted Henry. “You're talking like a loafer and not like a bookkeeper,” angrily retorted Markowitz. “If you was a missus and could answer all the questions they ask you by the Intelligence Office, you wouldn't be a bookkeeper by skoits but a President from Columbia College. You got to know a dozen languages, be a diplomat like Bismarck, a census reporter, a foist class architect and a fortune teller. They don’t talk about the price, they know they'll get how much they t; but th sk you how many children and rooms, what sizes and what kinds. How much help you already got and from what country. Altogether there was only four goils in the whole office, but there was eleven weiber and two husbands like myself, taking the examination. When it was my next, the foist goil asked me, if we stay out nights and if we got a private telephone. She wouldn't come because our telephone was from the apartment house. ‘The second one asked me if we stay out Wednesday nights; she was much kinder. I thought I had her already, because she must want her feller up the house that night, so | promised we go out every Wed- nesday night; but then I couldn't say for sure the size of the looking- wa i eats = : f be f Frany Rarle ite—Are you in favor of abolishing capital punishment? No, Siree! if it was good enough for my forefathers, it's good enough for me comicbooks.com