Judge, 1919-05-17 · page 11 of 32
Judge — May 17, 1919 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Fashionable Figure" and Related Humor from Judge Magazine The main cartoon satirizes the "Gibson Girl" era's extreme fashion standard for women's thinness. The joke: to achieve the fashionable "long and slight and flat and slim" figure advertised in fashion magazines, a husband should run his wife through a laundry *wringer* like clothes, flattening her completely. The dark humor mocks both the absurd, unhealthy body ideals promoted by fashion advertising and the notion that women should contort themselves to meet them. Below are short comic bits typical of Judge's humor: a colonel condescendingly reassuring an embarrassed private about smoking etiquette; jokes about telephone manners, a new expensive drink, and a hapless detective; and a wedding joke about an unattractive father-in-law. These reflect early-20th-century American anxieties about propriety, class, and modern conveniences.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Drawn by Tolonel (to private, embarrassed, who has officer and a fresh fag is a smoke! The Fashionable Figure By Tuvor Juxxs HE ladies in the fashion ads. Who seem to run to various fads, According to the present whim Are long and slight and flat and slim. If you should wish to look like these It can be managed if you please: Just Iet your husband simply bring a Laundry implement—the wringer; Then, just as if you were a mop, He starts in, and does not stop Till you've been rolled completely through. ‘Then—if you live—make your début! Ever Watch One At Work A right-cared person has a hard time trying to be a graceful telephoner. The New Soft Drink Customer—Is this a nut sundae? Clerk—No, it’s a mutt paydae—costs all you have. just lighted a cigarette and failed to salute)—Never mind, my boy! An officer is only an Asking the Price By E lost my watch,” said a resident of the Six Corners neigh- borhood. “That is, I don’t know for certain what became of it. You sce, it was either hanging in my best vest in the clothes-press and the hired man that left yesterday stole it, or it slipped out of my pocket some'rs, or I laid it down, or my brother-in-law borrowed it unbeknownst to me, or an agent carried it off, or something. Anyhow, I wisht you'd sorter see what you can do to’ards finding it for m “Pil do all I can,” replied Constable Sam ‘T. Slackputter, the redoubtable sleuth of Petunia. “But, of course, you know that some of the simplest looking cases turn out to be the most bafiling.” Yes, that’s so, Well, now, what are your regular rates by the day for being baffled?” ‘Tom P. Morcan At the Wedding Breakfast Groom—Who is that little shrimp at the side-table who gazes at me so queerly? Bride—That .. . That's father. Oh, I'll introduce him after breakfast.