Judge, 1917-08-11 · page 10 of 28
Judge — August 11, 1917 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces lampooning early 20th-century American domestic and rural life. **"Mrs. Clatterby Has an Upper Berth"** mocks a complaining wife on a Pullman train, presenting her as ungrateful and nagging toward her husband. The satire targets both her constant grievances and—implicitly—the era's gender dynamics where husbands controlled accommodations. **"The Eccentric Hired Man"** ridicules a city businessman attempting "gentleman farming" who expects hired workers to perform like theatrical farmhands—specifically, to sing folk songs like those from popular plays ("Way Down East," "Daisy, the Missouri Girl"). The joke exposes the gap between sentimental rural stereotypes and actual farm labor. **"Prepared for the Worst"** is a brief joke about marriage cynicism: a man expects to become a father-in-law to alimony payments rather than a grandfather, suggesting pessimism about modern marriages and divorce. All three pieces use satire to critique American social pretension, gender relations, and the divorce culture emerging in the 1910s-20s.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Mrs. Clatterby Has an Upper Berth (Continued from second preveding p40) I do that, and, anyhow, the ladies’ dressing-room in a Pullman is hardly big enough for two to undress in it and usually there are half a dozen waiting for it at the same time. The men have a great deal better provision made for them on Pullmans; but then they are better provided for in everything in this world. They look out for their own comfort. You can depend upon them doing that! If it had been you who was to take this trip instead of me I'll warrant you that you would have engaged a lower section six days in advance. Man is just that kind of an animal. Nothing is stronger in him than his instinct for self-preservation, self-comfort and self- everything! excepting self-sacrifice. It would take a Lick telescope to discover much of that in him! But when it comes to his wife who is to take a journey by rail, he is willing to let her run the risk of having to sleep on top of the car or on the trucks, like a tramp! There is no earthly reason why I should not have had a nice lower section right in the middle of the car for to-night, and I would have had it only you refused to get it for me when it was to be had and now—well, when a woman has been married as long as I have she has suffered worse disillusions than having her husband show so little regard for her comfort that he is willing to have her go climbing into an upper berth in a Pull- man when he might have secured a lower berth for her. I read the other day of a woman actually falling out of an upper berth when the car lurched and they picked her up in an unconscious condition and it was a week before she could speak a word or tell—what is that you are muttering to your- self? If you must say sarcastic things why not be enough of a man and a gentleman to say them out loud? If you had done as I said and got that berth—what a temper that man has, rushing off and banging the door like that! THE ECCENTRIC HIRED MAN “T HAVE the queerest set of hired men I ever heard of,” said the city business man who was deluding himself with the belief that he was doing gentleman farming on sundry acres a few miles in the country. “There are four of them, and only the other day the oldest one advised me to get rid of the rest, saying that I had no earthly use for more than one hired man. When I told him that four hired men were employed on every correctly managed farm, because otherwise it would be im- possible to have a quartette, he looked at me in a most peculiar manner. “The oddest thing about them is that not once yet when they came in at the close of day have they lined up and sung, “Say-hadly the cay-hook-oo is cay-halling now! IIly-ay-hoo! Lay-hee! Lay-he-e-e-e!’ And all well-regulated hired men do that frequently. I have seen ‘Way Down East’ and ‘Daisy, the Missouri Girl,’ and several other agricultural dramas, and the hired men in them never failed to pursue that course.”” . —Tom P. Morgan. Prepared for the Worst She—Some of these days you'll be grandfather to a dear pretty baby. He—Father-in-law to a pretty dear alimony, more likely! comicbooks.com