Judge, 1916-05-20 · page 8 of 28
Judge — May 20, 1916 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks courtroom flattery and legal absurdity. A black cat accused of biting off another cat's ear delivers an elaborate defense filled with excessive praise for the judge and jury—calling them "profound," "scholarly," "superb," etc. The satire targets how defendants and lawyers abuse flowery language and obsequious compliments to manipulate courts, hoping judges will overlook obvious guilt through shameless flattery. The cat's defense is deliberately ridiculous: he admits the crime but argues his brain (like the judge's) is so superior he deserves leniency. The title "Consistency the Jewel" implies judges often contradict themselves, being swayed by flattery rather than principle. The accompanying illustrations mock daily life's absurdities—a woman asking about missing snakes, a man unable to lend money despite claiming to have it available. The broader message critiques how formal institutions rely on performative language rather than justice.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
CONSISTENCY THE JEWEL “M AY IT please your Honor,” said the strange black cat, with spectacular nose, and one paw out of commission, who was pleading his own case before a jury of his peers, “in conduct- ing my defense before this august court presided over by your pro- found, learned, scholarly, just, high- minded and super-excellent self, and gazing into the faces of these jurymen whose intelligence, reliability, nobil- ity, reasonableness and good looks stamp them at once as the most su perb aggregation which it has ever been my good fortune to look upon, I am moved by a sense of my own humbleness; yet, since I am charged with the crime of biting off the right ear of Mrs. Michael Healey’s cat, Thomas, and realizing that said cat, even by reason of his residence in the same neighborhood, which is honored by being the home of your revered self and of the important, renowned and glorious gentlemen who compose this jury, may be entitled to some slight consideration, I cannot but feel that you will listen to me with attention, and that you will acquit me if you but give ear to my humble pleadings. “Tf I may be allowed to state in toto and in extenso the regret table circumstances surrounding my enforced mastication of Thomas ear I crave the indulgence of your sublime self and these wonderful and intellectual jurymen. I begin at the beginning having traveled from afar, and being without means of sustenance I was engaged in searching the contents of a garbage can. I well remember my delight when I discovered a very fine specimen of meat-bone, with the like of which your Honor is familiar. [ was quite unmindful, in the joy of my new found meat-bone, of the fact that a wedding was in progress on the back-yard fence, and was attending strictly to my own business, and the disintegration of the meat which I had removed from the bone; permit me to say that when the said Thomas Healey interposed his countenance between my tecth and the shred of meat which I }) SUCH IS LIFE “Great Scott! Where's your feathers ?” * Pulled then out for Miss Swallow to line her nest with. Then she married somebody else.” pitile, and all other attributes of modern law so firmly embedded in his constitution that he ought to go scot-free like any other criminal. Me-ow!” —Fred Ladd. His Achievement “For QUITE a spell Anson Spraddle has been regarded champion sluggard of this particular portion of the coun tryside,” stated honest Farmer Hornbeak. “But it looks as if he has finally been aroused by the clarion call of progress. Last Wednesday afternoon he got out of his ear, all by himseli and entirely unaided, a bean that had been in there for six years as the this coming summer.” Method “Old man, can you let me have a five for “Sorry, but the five I lend is out at present, and there are several ahead of you on the waiting list.” couple of days?” was endeavoring to reduce to an_irre- ducible minimum, I mistook his ear for the m May it please your Honor and these noble men of ure into whose lofty-souled countenances I now gaze, I submit that I was without intent of wrong, and I beg you to discharge me, that once again I may-wander up- on the face of this earth, homeless, hap- py, and having in mind forevermore the beneficence, the benevolence, the generosity and the astounding superi- ority of yourself as a judge and these gentlemen as jurymen. In closing my defense I cannot but add that when The Creator had fashioned a brain so marvelous as yours, he must have rested, tired with the effort.” The Icarned judge on the bench passed his paw wisely across his fore- head, and delivered himse follows: 1 must charge the jury in this re- markable case to be mindful of the fact that the prisoner at the bar has evinced so rare and perfect a sense of discernment and discrimination that it stamps him at once as a cat quite out of the ordinary. In other words, he has the bunkum, drivel, evasions, flattery, ~ Mother, dear, have you seen anything of those three snakes | had in my pocket when I came into the house ?” comicbooks.com