Judge, 1918-04-06 · page 2 of 36
Judge — April 6, 1918 — page 2: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily a **book advertisement** for "Famous Characters of History," a 16-volume encyclopedia set, rather than political satire. The left side features an engraving labeled "NERO AT THE BURNING OF ROME," depicting the infamous Roman emperor amid destruction and chaos. The accompanying text uses Nero as a cautionary example—comparing his crimes (matricide, fratricide, incendiarism) to warn against "imperialism" and its "slavish followers." This appears to be the ad's moral hook: purchasing this historical encyclopedia provides "lessons for the present" about how great civilizations fall when ruled by monstrous despots. The satirical angle, if present, seems to equate contemporary imperialism with Nero's tyranny, though the primary purpose is selling books.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| Reval Degenerate MATRICIDE— FRATRICIDE— UXORCIDE— INCENDIARY—MOUNTEBANK—BUFFOON! To fittingly describe this monster in human form would exhaust | the vocabulary of crime. Yet he was absolute monarch of nearly half the world. Like the Hohenzollern who set the world on fire, and system- atically plotted the destruction of civilization, he imagined | himself to excel in every human art and attainment. He ran the gamut of every crime and vice, making the Roman Empire minister to his atro , and cheating Vengeance at the end, died lamenting that so splendid a genius should have to pass § away. i In him Nature seems to have done her worst, and conspired with Fate to place her product on an eminence so exalted that all men | might see how great a monster she was capable of engendering— © a sinister warning to the slavish followers of imperialism. Read the story of his life—so pregnant with lessons for the pres- ent—only one of many marvelous and true stories told in the 16 7 volumes of the Immortal Edition of 4 ial A wa LLL sAS1 Ramous Characters of History | 4800 Pages - Large, Clear Type Extra Heavy Paper — Rich Cloth Binding 16 Volumes—Each Volume 8 x 5'; Inches 48 Full-Page Illustrations in Sepia Remarkable Characters All JULIUS CAESAR ate is so wild ca the veritable hist ory of his ad of the terrible religious wars of the cA Second only to Caesar a8 a colossal genius; one of the world's prodivies CLEOPATRA A royal Varopire: cursed with a beauty that was the unolng of hersell and all with whom she -ame PETER THE GREAT tof the C. the type of man most needed in ‘Rasais MARY QUEEN OF ‘3 nti: figure whowe AFFAIRES d°AMOUR subjects and hall the courts of Europe in » Empire; the man who ame! in the coupon must be adva to this Introductory offer does 1 @ quic entire edition so as to bring the within th originally set aside for that purpos: MONEY BACK IF NOT SATISFIED MAIL THIS COUPON TODAY BRUNSWICK SUBSCRIPTION COMPANY. semeat to in this series. g vin New York City sraited acters, demonstrate « iMustration of the story reads ike a tale from the Arabian show in the the implacette fully ‘ived I and shadows. in the live the being creatures of cire full of valua terest which is ever the mother of enjoyment