Judge, 1916-06-24 · page 8 of 29
Judge — June 24, 1916 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks pretentious male intellectualism during Shakespeare's 300th anniversary celebration (1916). Colonel Beanfugle boasts endlessly about his lifelong Shakespeare devotion, claiming he preferred Shakespeare's tragedies to dime novels even as a child. His story—reading Shakespeare aloud in a hayloft instead of playing—is meant to demonstrate his superior cultural refinement. The satire targets his pomposity and self-aggrandizing nostalgia. Mrs. Beanfugle's dry responses ("I paid five dollars") undercut his pretension. The accompanying illustrations show absurd circus performers and a slapstick "Mr. Bug" scene, reinforcing that Beanfugle's earnest self-regard is ridiculous. The page satirizes how men weaponize cultural "sophistication" (Shakespeare) as status markers while dismissing women's legitimate skepticism about such performative intellectualism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
COLONEL BEANFUGLE ON THE SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARY OBSERVE,” said Colo- nel Beanfugle, “that this is Shakespeare's three hundredth an- niversary.”” “T've noticed some- thing about it some- where,” said Mrs. Beanfugle. “Something about it somewhere!” echoed the colonel. ‘*I should think it would have come to your atten- tion, seeing that it is filling the news- papers and magazines all over the civ i world. I have been taking advantage of the occasion to renew my acquaintance with the bard. Not that he ever slips very far from my memory. Since early boyhood days my chief delight has been the read- ing of Shakespeare. I remember one time when I was about eight, a chum of mine came over to my house, and summoned me outdoors and showed me that his inside coat pocket was bulging suspiciously.” Mr. Bug—Hi, there, mister, watch your step! By ARTHUR CHAPMAN “He'd been swiping doughnuts, I pre- sume,” said Mrs. Beanfugle. “Doughnuts nothing! He had _ filled his coat pockets with literature of the worst sort—dime novels which had to do with Deadwood Dick and other desperadoes. 1 secretly very much disgusted, but not letting my companion know how I regarded him, I returned to the house and came out with my favorite pocket volume of Shake- s tragedies in my pocket. Then we red to the hayloft in my father’s barn, he thinking all the time that I had_ fallen in with his scheme to go up there and spend the afternoon reading the trash he had brought along.” “Well, you did, didn’t you?” asked Mrs Beanfugl “How little you know me in spite of all the years you have lived with me,” returned the colonel. “Such a thought as reading a dime novel never entered my head. In- stead, when we had reached the recesses of the hayloft, I produced the Shakespeare and insisted on ading it aloud to him. Fascinated, my companion urged me to read one play after another. We read until the evening shadows fell, both too interested to re- alize that we had missed sup- per. Finally we were discovered by our parents, who had or- ganized the neighborhood to hunt for us. Our fathers were so impressed with the discovery that we had been reading Shakespeare that we escaped a whipping, although I remem- ber our mothers voted for the switch. Women asa rule have very little appreciation of Shakespeare, and I suppose our mothers were no more than following the general average when they failed to see the good in our long day in the hayloft.” that Iam a woman who docs not appreciate Sh ” marked Mrs. Beanfugle. “I paid five dollars ange es ee on ky) PRS } @ x Sey om Man—You'll never get your kite down that way. Why don’t you use your head ? Urchin Aw, me neck ain't long enough ! comicbooks.com