Judge, 1917-04-28 · page 8 of 28
Judge — April 28, 1917 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of satirical content: **"April Flowers"** is romantic poetry by Clinton Scollard—not satirical, just sentimental verse about spring. **"His Offending"** satirizes domestic complaints. A small town has tarred-and-feathered a man whose only "crime" is being an exemplary husband whose virtues wives constantly praise to their husbands, making the husbands feel inadequate by comparison. The joke mocks both nagging wives and insecure men. **"The Fourth Dimension"** is philosophical satire about a couple at a romantic restaurant discussing abstract concepts (likely referencing newer mathematical/scientific theories of dimensionality popular in early 20th-century intellectual circles). The waiter's punchline—defining the Fourth Dimension as a place "where customers cease from troubling and waiters are at rest"—mocks pretentious philosophical conversation by grounding it in working-class cynicism. **"Subtle"** is a one-line joke about self-made men and foolishness. The illustrations support these narratives with period-appropriate sketches of the scenes described.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
APRIL FLOWERS By CLINTON SCOLLARD these fair April flowers, They seem such tender things! They sweeten all the hours With vernal gladdenings. Yet they show no such wonder, Yet they hold naught so rare. : As your eyes of violet under Your daffodilian hair! His Offending HE mob raged down the main street of Grudge and out toward the wide pra' with their victim in their midst, astride of a saw-edged rail and clad in an overcoat of tar, trimmed with the hair of the hen and buttoned on with a broom. “What crime has he committed?” asked a stranger of a villager who was lame and therefore unable to participate “How did you get rid ofthat bore Jones and his prattle about his new baby >” in the exer “ Lintroduced him to Brown, who has a new car. “Crime? was the snarling reply. “He is a model husband whose many excellencies have been thrown up THE FOURTH DIMENSION to us by our wives until we could endure no more. Ar-r-r-r-r!”” fy BENJAMIN: DeCASSERES rr 667 HE Fourth Dimension,” she purled over the table—that little table of ours behind the palm trees—while the Tzigaines played the ond Hungarian Rhapsody, “is like the contents of this amber wine-g! In that dimension we shall be shadowy, effulgent, radiant, like the shadows moving through our wine—the shadows of those promenading yonder on the beach. We—you and I—shall be lucent and translucent up there—in that beautiful Fourth Dimension.” “Or,” said 1, “the Fourth Dimension will be like your wonderful —an infinite pool of light, wherein I shall be the single, eternal swimmer.” “Or,” she said, with a pensive eye, “like the sea waves out there, or the depth of them, in which we shall both be lost to one another and eaten by cosmic sharks and whales of the Hyperspaces. “The Fourth Dimension!” I said gravely. “Ah! Who can tell what it is like. Something like those mirrors on the ceilings of certain cafés, where we see ourselves upside down and somewhat ridiculously—a place where one can sce his own | bald head and where women will sce for the first time the gray i strand on the top of their heads.” “Or like a kiss,” she strophied; “yes, like a kiss is that Fourth Dimension—a kiss, which is a promise, but not a fulfil- ment; a stimulant, but not an cye-opener. And she looked at me are hij fourth dimensionally, with certain super-geometrical twinkles in her eye. Th aid the check down. er.” L said, “what do you think of the Fourth Dimen- sion—you know what I mean, as you are a college man in the winter time.” “The Fourth Dimension, sir,” replied our boy, “is a place where customers cease from troubling and waiters are at rest.” Subtle vo one ever made a fool of me yet.” said Brownson “Then you may claim to be a self-made man,” said his 1! Must be a fire of somethin’ !” friend quietly. a “Gee, what a crow: