Judge — July 26, 1919 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

by Henan Pawn HAT is farce without an uncle? What would the fashioners of comic situations do if they couldn’t in a plot emergency lug in that treasured avuncular adjunct to boost the merriment with his bespatted struttings, his embarrassing questions and his potent check-book? It seemed fora time as though lingerie and beds had ousted him. Why, there were a couple of months this spring when the New York stage was practically uncle- Jess. Then along came “A Lonely Romeo” and this cherished character was restored to us in all his pri tine glory—the uncle we laughed at long since and lost awhile The last previous full-fledged unk was in “The Girl Behind the Gun.” There he happened to be a French general, but his réle was the regular one—the gray- haired but hale and hearty celibate vectedly to set the younger folks shamexplanations. In that sh who pops in unex- busy with mw his niece tried to palm off upon him some- body else’s husband as her own, and nunkie was so delighted, so hand-rub- bingly enthusiastic at the sight of this ideal nsisted on Tspring aon made the alleged spice (plural ¢ spouses) bill and coo in his pres- ence while the real husband glowered hig \ ty ss , conjugal pair, that he singing of their future c by Relatively Speaking By Lawtox Macwaur from the side lines. The scene, though funn a bit raw: more suited to the uncles in the than to their nieces \ well-ordered stage uncle won't mix matrimony quite to that degree. His time-honored function is to visit unexpectedly a nephew who, having oversquan- dered his allowance, got uncle to raise the by pretending to be married. When the long-distance ben- efactor arrives to inspect the alliance, a bride, or per- haps even wife and babe, must be trumped up for ex- hibition purposes: hence plenty of farce opportunities Indeed, the favorite situation of a fellow and a girl pre- ng to be married in order that dreadful remarks and intimations may be made to them and inaudible audience questions whispered in their patient cars—this peren- 4 i F i ght never have been invented without the agency of uncles. Yet consider the aunt! She is a busy f worker,and can have nephews as well as a male check-book wielder. In “Tumble In,” the girlish reincarnation of “Seven Days,” Zelda Sears is an aunt capable of imparting un- limited embarrassments. The rash pair who feign wed- her benefit are in for a more extensive ordeal than they contemplated. For she is one of those strong-minded ladies who give advice of a most per- sonal ure. Her officious solicitude is of a sort to make the squeamish squirm. “Oh, Boy,” you remember, harbored among its dramatis persone a Quaker aunt who came to view how naughty nephew was behaving; but her awful scrutiny of the scamp was definitely * diverted by an inner concentration of cocktails, which she poured into herself under the impression that they were lemonade. She was a great aunt while she lasted. In “La La Lucille” the aunt for whose cash’s sake Jack Hazzard hovers on the brink of divorce turns out to be in the end a Noble Nature. After being the cause of so much farce, that was hardly fair. What right has an aunt to be noble? She should remain angular and not try to poach on gray-haired mother’s preserves. Aunts should be kept away from sticky sentiment. And now lest the spinsters have too complete a mandate over giddy youth, in breezes “Oh, Uncle.” uation n tial s lock for ee comicbooks.com