Judge, 1919-03-22 · page 12 of 32
Judge — March 22, 1919 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis for Modern Readers **Main Cartoon ("Finance and a Fiancée"):** A young woman (Sadie) persuades her romantic fiancé (Harold) to postpone their spring wedding to July by laying out brutally practical economic arguments. She calculates savings on platinum rings, furniture, coal vs. ice costs, freight shipping, and department store clearances—all post-WWI economic disruptions. The satire targets the collision between romantic idealism and postwar economic hardship; Sadie represents the shrewd, business-minded woman who won't let sentiment override financial pragmatism. The joke is her complete dismantling of his poetic vision with spreadsheet logic. **Secondary Cartoon (bottom):** A brief domestic exchange about matches "striking"—likely a mild double entendre about marital relations. **Literary Notes section:** Gossip about contemporary books, including sarcasm about Colonel House's "Philip Dru" novel and a joke about *Treasure Island* being rewritten to reflect Prohibition ("dry as a bone"). The page reflects immediate postwar (circa 1920) American concerns: inflation, supply shortages, and the "new woman" of the Jazz Age.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Draes by Doxsip McKee “Td Finance and a Fiancée By New R. OH aKa shall be married right away Harold, the impetuous lover. He had just placed the engagement ring on her finger. “We shafl be married in the spring, when Nature is awakening and all the world is happy.” “We will not,” replied Sadie, the shrewd stenog- rapher, who had worked for Big Business. ‘The middle of July is the proper date.” Harold’s romantic rhetoric halted while stabterfacts rolled out “By July,” she said, “the price of platinum will have dropped from twenty to thirty per cent., due to the post-bellum reaction, and you will get a better bar- gain in a wedding ring then than you have done in this engagement ring—although this is v prett “By July, the pressure on surplus money will be less. The Fifth Liberty Loan will then be subscribed and there will be no Red Cross drives and the like. So our friends will be disposed to give me more expensive wedding gifts then than now. “In July we shall have no coal to buy, and the net dearest,” said Draws by Ray Roun She—I suppose these matches strike only He—Oh, no! On the contrary. > how it is, but ever since I been to the war th vat the old place!” seems to be suthin’ lackin’ a difference between the cost of coal and the cost of ice, which we must have, will represent a neat saving at the outset of our married life. “By July the freight congestion will be materially relieved, and we shall be able to buy furniture more cheaply and be certain of having it delivered promptly. Likewise, in July, there will come the annual clearance sales in the department stores, and I shall be able to purchase linen for our home at reductions of twenty-five to thirty-three per cent. from their current cost “In July you will be able to take your two weeks’ vacation on pay, and we can spend both the time and the money on our honeymoon without any unneces- sary loss. Also, it being summer then, we can do most of our honeymoon travelling by boat, which is con- siderably cheaper. “Your petition for a marriage right away, while Nature is awakening and all the world is happy, scems to me to be inconsistent with the facts that I have pre- sented—dearest!”” And so they were married—in July. Literary Notes By Curisrornex Morrey HIS has been a bad season for poets. The winter has been so mild that there really has been no fun in writing spring poems. Because the true spring poem can only be written during a blizzard. Colonel House’s novel, “Philip Dru, Administrator,” after a very dull career of seven years, has just gone into a second edition. [tis to be hoped that no one will be lured into buying it, because it very de- sirable, at least until March, 1921, that the public think of the Colonel as an exceed- ingly wise and able man. We have never heard of anyone so intrepid as to get beyond page 162 of that book. New editions of Treasure Island will print the famous pirates’ song in a Bryan- ized version, to wit: orty-eight States as dry as a bone, Yo ho ho and a noggin of milk! Drink and the Devil are now unknown Yo ho ho and a ne of milk! in n the box. comicbooks.com