Judge, 1918-03-02 · page 5 of 36
Judge — March 2, 1918 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical article by D.B. Van Buren, illustrated by Noemi Pernessin, mocks the frustrations of home heating during winter. The three cartoon panels at top show a malfunctioning furnace causing domestic chaos: a woman bundled in heavy clothing, a man struggling on the floor, and presumably an angry confrontation about the broken heating system. The story follows Mr. and Mrs. Grimley's battle with their new furnace, which has replaced their old coal stove. The "demon" is the temperamental modern heating system that refuses to function properly—a common complaint during this era's transition from traditional stoves to mechanical furnaces. The satire targets the false promise of modern convenience: the new technology is less reliable and more frustrating than what preceded it.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Volume 74 JUDGE 1881 “THE HAPPY eMEDIUM” Number 1898 $5.00 a Year New York, Marcu 2, 1918 Published Weekly “Ir Gave No Sicn or Lire.” “He Srrucciep Out Onto THe Foor.” The Demon “Dip You Ler Ir Go Out?” Have You a Little Moloch in Your Home? The Heart-Breaking Experience of a ‘Typical American Householder. By D. B. the therometer was sinking in the ity of a good man UTSIDE tube with the easy faci falling from grace. Inside, the heater had this occasion to demonstrate its efficiency as the soul of a cold storage plant. Grimley, the chills running down his back, thought bitterly of the fallacious device that always deserted him in his hour of need. It was a monstrous contrap- tion, vaguely suggestive of Moloch, that ate up coal like a fiend and required more attention than a sick baby. Then, too, there was something almost consciously malign about it. It never threw out an honest, ruddy light, like a grate, but occasionally blinked redly or cast a sinister glare on the ceiling. or the rest, it gave no sign of life and invited intimacy and affection about as much as a crocodile. No one could imagine a happy family gathered around it or around the hole in the floor through which it was supposed to warm the house Meditating on these things, Grimley was sorry he had not been kinder, in its lifetime, to a certain old stove that had formerly been his prop and stay. Ithad been ignominiously kicked out when the new furnace made Van Buren Illustrated by Noemi Pernessin its appearance and Grimley had never ceased to regret it; but such regrets are vain. The man who owns a first-class modern furnace, which always worsts him in single combat, may regret but cannot retrieve the hon- est old base-burner which, with all its faults, was occa- sionally so obliging as to emit a little heat in winter. “My dear,” sighed Mrs. Grimley, “don’t you think you had better go down and look at the furnace?”’—this for the seventeenth time that day. “No, I do not!” growled Grimley. He had looked at the cussed old furnace till the mere sight of it made him ill. “I have done nothing all day but rake and shake and fill it up. Satan himself couldn’t stoke an- other degree of heat out of it! “Tf you would only take out the clinkers!”” Mrs. Grimley. “Do you mean I am to empty it?” asked Mr. Grim- with suave sarcasm. “You forget what we now under the name of coal. The removal of the clinkers would leave a mere vacuum; anyhow, the fur- nace may go to the devil. tad moaned I won’t touch it! Mrs. Grimley shivered and went for a shawl. ‘Trou- comicbooks.com