Judge, 1917-03-03 · page 11 of 28
Judge — March 3, 1917 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces typical of early 20th-century American humor: **Top cartoon**: A Southern gentleman ("Mister Nustum") asks a woman ("Miss Angus") to offer her hand, but she declines, noting it's not a leap year—when tradition allowed women to propose. The satire mocks both outdated courtship customs and gender role rigidity. **"A Subterfuge"**: A brief quip about euphemism—how people use "experience" to politely describe shameful conduct. **"Big Town Gossip"**: Arthur Chapman's column satirizes urban life, contrasting country and city behavior. Key targets include: a wife supporting her lazy husband through magazine writing (role reversal as comedy); people's pretentiousness about winter coal purchases; government officials always requesting budget increases; and city folk's obsession with electric signs and automobile lights—treating urban excess as aspirational. The bottom cartoon shows a cheerful child with hearts, captioned "Have a Heart"—likely promoting sentiment or charity. The overall tone reflects Progressive-era anxieties about changing gender roles, government waste, and urban materialism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
no difference if people peddle in pushcarts or speech in choiches or make collections from bugs—they all get together sooner oder later. So why shouldn't baseball players get together just like book- keepers got together. You know Max, I'm thinking of joining the bookkeeper union what’s got. a minimum wage of — lenry,” interrupted Markowitz anx- y, “what do you t to join book- unions for? If it’ll be time to you a raise, don’t you think I'll do it?) Ain't I your brother-in-law and not a cut-throat baseball boss?” and Mar- kowitz as usual terminated a discussion that might lead .to a serious ending by rushing into the showroom. A Subterfuge Experience is frequently the word men use when they must designate acts of which they are ashamed. Mister Nustum—Ain't yer even gwine ter offer me yer hand, Miss Angus? Miss Nustum ; dis ain't no leap-year perdicament. Big Town Gossip HE line between men’s and women’s work is more closely drawn in the country than in the town. There are more Big Town men than farmers who wash the dishes at night. A friend of mine knows a woman who thought she would make a little money writing for the magazines, just to help out the family income. She succeeded from the first—so well, in fact that now she is supporting the entire famil cluding her husband, who gradually cut down his earnings as she increased hers. The people who are forehanded enough to get in their winter coal in July or Au- gust simply cannot help putting on a slight air of superiority along in Ja It is generally found tha: a sort of first cousin to ability. I suppose somewhere there is a barber shop, the proprietor of which does not take the head chair, and greet and speed the guests, and count the checks, but I doubt if even a squad of detectives and reporters could find it in a hurry. I have no desire to outlast Methuselah, but I should like to live long enough to read the annual report of a government official who did not assert that his de- partment ought to have more funds. In the country a farmer generally has to build a wind-break on the north side of the house, but in the city some kindly apartment-house contractor saves him Angus —Ah suttinly am not, Mistah the trouble by putting up something that shuts off light as well as air. It used to be that the only red lightona Big Town residence street was an occasion- al lantern, when some kind of digging job was under way; now think of all the au- tomobile tail-lights that are strung along. No farmer ever looks at a big electric sign in town without thinking how stun- ning it would appear on the side of his barn, —Arthur Chapman “HAVE A HEART” comicbooks.com