Judge, 1917-07-07 · page 17 of 27
Judge — July 7, 1917 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces of satirical content: **The Cartoon:** A sketch showing two women at the Inverness Country Club in Toledo, Ohio discussing a third woman named Nellie. The joke is that Nellie dates "that horrid Blivins man" solely because he's the only club member her father can reliably beat at golf—and she gets a new dress each time they play together. The satire mocks the transactional nature of wealthy social relationships and how women's romantic choices were sometimes economically motivated by their fathers' social standing. **"The Ocean" Essay:** A humorous mock-encyclopedic piece comparing the ocean to "useless conversation"—both cause wrecks, produce noise, taste bad, and are treacherous. The piece makes light observations about mermaids (contrasting mythical versus modern versions), ocean fiction formulas, and tidal regulation. It's gentle, whimsical satire without clear political targets, typical of Judge's lighter filler content.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AT THE INVERNESS COUNTRY CLUB, TOLEDO, OHIO Maude—I don’t see why Nellie goes around with that horrid Blivins man. Bess—She has to: he’s the only man in the club her father can beat, and it means a new dress for her every time they play. THE OCEAN HE OCEAN is a large, restless ag- glomeration of dampness which covers a considerable portion of the earth’s surface. The ocean is so IIMA «wide and so deep 4 that it is safe to RY asseverate there is ‘ more ocean on earth than any other one thing, with the pos- sible exception of useless conversation. A brief examination will show that there is much similarity between useless conversation and the ocean. They both roll in huge billows, cause many wrecks, make a meaningless noise, are disagre able to the taste, are treacherous in many places, separate friends and _ relatives, are connected with countless storms, and cannot be blotted out of existence. There is, however, one point of variance. Desultory conversation is made up of a = > = s s < s < . Ss 5 a a) -_ 2 s TAVAVAVAVAVAR all kinds of sounding lines, but if a sound- ing line is used in the ocean it will show a depth which conversation rarely pos- sesses. The ocean is inhabited by fishes, ser- pents, submarines, and mermaids. There are two kinds of mermaids, modern and mythical. The modern are not exactly the same as the mythical. Some of the modern variety are not comely to look upon. Those who are not comely are apt to stay in deeper water than those who seemed especially designed for scant bathing suits. Those who are comely generally satisfy their natatorial crav- ings by merely standing where the shal- low ripples of the ocean lave the beach, hoping that shallow ripples of admiration will lave their ears. Cover a mermaid with a panoply of favorable glances and she feels perfectly protected. Fiction is replete with the ocean. There seem to be but three kinds of popular stories: love stories, detective stories and sea stories. Life on the bound- ing main has been described by all sorts of writers, and each one of them knows that the sea has a salty taste. The tides of the ocean are regulated by the moon. It is not clearly under- stood just why the ocean should go so far out of its way to be regulated when Congress is so much nearer at hand. It is, of course, an excellent thing to have tides regulated, for if they went out and came in with the perfect freedom of an unmarried man, it would frequently be very embarrassing to proprictors of sea- side hotels and clam diggers. The ocean is a wonderful institution. Few are they who can gaze out upon the mighty expanse of waters without an awed feeling, and still fewer are they who can sail across its heaving bosom with- out an odd feeling. —Stuart W. Knight. She Used to Fall for Him “Didn’t she used to fall down and worship him?’’ “She did until he fell down.”