Judge, 1917-08-25 · page 15 of 28
Judge — August 25, 1917 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the strain of married life during bad weather, a common domestic complaint of the era. The cartoon at top shows a country club scene where a woman jokes that a man's wife "makes him play golf"—the implication being that golf is preferable to spending a rainy Sunday confined indoors with his spouse. The lengthy article elaborates the joke: rainy Sundays force couples into extended close quarters, beginning with oversleeping, a poor breakfast, and progressing through boredom, irritation, and accumulated domestic tension that frequently escalates into serious marital conflict—so severe that "what happens" is only discussed in divorce court proceedings. Judge's satirical solution is absurdist: establish an interplanetary organization to prevent Sunday rain, intern all weather bureau employees, and confiscate meteorological instruments. The humor targets both marital discord and the early-20th-century fascination with technological/bureaucratic "solutions" to everyday problems. The byline "H. W. Dee" appears to be a pseudonym.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AT THE SHAWNEE COUNTRY CLUB, SHAWNEE-ON-DELAWARE, PA. Edith—How do you know his wife makes him play golf? The Supreme Test A RAINY SUNDAY is the supreme test of the integrity of your wedded bi! A man that can love and honor his wife for twelve consecutive hours when Sunday is sloppy, and a woman who can put up with her husband for the same length of time under the same conditions without giving him concussion of the noodle are slated for an idyllic existence. Nothing can prevent it. No homewreckers need apply. Under the present scheme of operation in domestic circles the rainy Sunday pre- sents problems that baffle the shrewdest of earnestly married people. To begin with, the average family sleeps two hours and a half longer than usual—or necessary —and arises with not a little blood in its eyes. Then there is a weazened breakfast that bears the same relation to a meal that acan of sardines and a cracker do toa banquet. After that the family sits around in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke, unmade beds and Sunday newspapers until it has an awful grouch, col- lectively and individually. About one or two o'clock there comes an extra heavy dinner, calculated to stand up under the ravages of the most powerful gastric juices until Wednesday night or Thursday morning. Marie—Because he plays! As soon as the ‘dishes have been washed tandem and with more or less parlor profanity, there follows a deluge of irritating magazines storics and cheap novels and more desultory but increasingly acrid confabulation. By twenty minutes past four the household is just about as bilious—and as safe—as a volcano that can’t hold in a minute longer. And nine times out of ten it doesn’t. What happens after things come to a head is sometimes divulged at the trial, but if there are any ladies or gentlemen in the court-room, they always get up and go out to waste their sweetness and blush unseen. | So nobody but the scandal- mongers hear it, and they always exaggerate things so that you don’t know what to believe. And it’s lucky that you don’t. The rainy Sunday is a vicious institution. It has caused more divorces than have divergent tastes, straight incompati- bility, non-support and punk provender all put together. We favor the immediate organization of an interplanetary society for the prevention of rain on Sunday, the internment of all people connected with the weather bureau, and the com- mandeering of all goose bones, rheumatic joints, barometers and other meteorological paraphernalia known to have any influence with the weather. Then we can hope to keep Sunday fair and pleasant. —H. W. Dee. Carranza is giving the Kaiser ample cause to sue him for breach of lost provinces. comichooks.