Judge, 1916-08-19 · page 9 of 28
Judge — August 19, 1916 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes wealthy leisure-class women who spend summers at beach resorts claiming to be perpetually busy, yet accomplish nothing substantive. Two women discuss multi-year needlework projects they continually fail to complete—one's tablecloth in its fourth season, another's bedspread in its fifth. The satire's point: they fill their days with trivial activities (dressing, meals, naps, motor drives, bridge games) that consume all their time, leaving no room for actual work. Yet they paradoxically insist they "enjoy being busy" and wouldn't want idle lives. The accompanying cartoon (top) shows the "50¢ Commission"—likely referencing beach resort services or activities wealthy women purchase. The sidebar jokes mock women's contradictions and hint at emerging social change (women doing Christmas shopping, eventually "paying the bills"), reflecting early 20th-century anxiety about women's changing roles.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WHEN HE hotel piazza rocking-chair in which Mrs. Korpulant’ rocked gently to and fro creaked as if in pain while Mrs. Korpulant’s bejeweled fingers worked listlessly on the table- cover she was embroid- ering. “Thisis the fourth sea- son that I have brought this table cover to the beach for a kind of pick-up work and it isn’t more than half done now,” she said. “Every year I say that I wit finish it this season and then I take it home not done. “I's the same with me and this bed- spread Loam crocheting,” said) Mrs. Slappen. “This is the fifth season I have brought it with me and it’s not half done yet. It will need three hundred and sixty-six of these little squares set to- gether to complete the spread and I have only one hundred and nine finished. 1 wanted to finish it last year to give to my daughter for a wedding present, but YOU'RE A BUSY WORLD by MAN MERRY MAN I didn’t get it done. the shore.” “Doesn't it, though? You get up in the morning say at cight and it’s after nine before you are dressed and get your breakfast. Then if you go for a ride or a walk on the beach or visit a litle on the piazza it’s noon before you know it. Then you have to dress for luncheon and maybe have a massage or take a nap and then take your afternoon motor and by the time you get back and sit on the piazza a little it’s time to dress for dinner, and after dinner you play bridge or watch the young folks dance or visit on the piazza again and first thing you know it is midnight. It’s a busy, busy world, isn’t it?” “Indeed it ist!) And yet I have had some of my friends ask me what we do at the all summer. I always Time does fly so at seashore BROKE the day is never long enough for it all.” This bedspread unfinished after five sons of trying to get it done is proof of that. As you say, it is a busy, busy, busy world. And yet who wants to be “W ho indeed? I really enjoy being y even when it wearies me a little. astly prefer the busy life to the in- active one and I am glad that I do live in such a busy, busy world.” Looking Forward s plain that woman’s progress there’s no stopping, For day by day a larger place she fills. Some day we men will do the Christmas shopping And women will (we hope so) pay the bills, The Exception Nipp—Nothing is so contradictory as a woman. Tuck—Oh, 1 don’t know. ever read the war news? Do you comicbooks.com