Judge, 1917-09-29 · page 7 of 28
Judge — September 29, 1917 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical comic mocks the urban-rural divide popular in early 20th-century American humor. A city man boasts he'll show overworked farmers they're just complaining—farm work is easy play. The sequential panels show his comeuppance: after attempting actual farm labor, he collapses in exhaustion, repeatedly declaring himself "dead tired." The joke targets condescending city attitudes toward rural workers. The farmer's initial complaint about being "overworked" is vindicated when the city man, unaccustomed to physical labor, discovers farming is genuinely arduous. It's a humbling reversal that satirizes urban smugness and ignorance of agricultural hardship. The rest of the page contains unrelated light verse and humor pieces about social matters ("movie-itis," courtship, gender relations), typical of Judge's miscellaneous satirical content from this era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE CITY MAN WENT FARMING These hayseeds are always hollerin’ about being overworked. I'll show them.” “Why, man, this is play, not work. You farmers make me tired, THE EPIDEMIC Another victim of movie-itis Familiar Geography Mother “On what does she base her claim to YA7HO found a common lump of clay, having belonged to an Old Virginia An awkward country laddy, family?” And made, by working night and day, “The fact that she is a natural bridge The brick ss call our daddy? player.” Nothing On Our Parents “Wordsworth said ‘Heaven lies about And holding suitors in a daze us in our infancy.’”” Till binding words they utter? “So did our parents.” Mother! Getting By When Billy’s bent with bitter woe, She—Why don’t you call me “dear” Who steels his drooping spinal, oeadans? By telling him that woman's “No And have Mr. Hoover warn me to Iparelyseves Boe find a substitute? mene! Who teaches Nell the surest ways Of making pulses Hutter, ‘afterwara Who makes the men dissatisfied With lasses free to marry, But gently scatters {rom her side The chaps inclined to tarry? E was not great in any way, He did not do a noble deed, Nor lend a helping hand to aid Mother? A luckless creature in his need. Terrell Love Holliday. Yet he was missed far more than if ) Mankind were better for his ken, Oeics ieee en ceecisi Since, though his way led through the world, What is a one-way street? He never bored his fellowmen! “Where you only get smashed up “—dead tired!” —Charlotte Becker. from the rear.”