Judge, 1921-11-05 · page 5 of 36
Judge — November 5, 1921 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of This Judge Magazine Page **The Cartoon:** An early automobile stops on a country road where an old man stands. The motorist asks a villager if he's seen "William Jones" around here, and receives directions to a cemetery "beyond the bridge," with the grim reply "He's dead." **The Joke:** This is a straightforward dark humor piece playing on the collision between modern technology (the automobile) and rural tradition. The implication is that William Jones died some time ago, yet the motorist's search suggests he was unaware—creating gallows humor about how isolated rural communities remain from news. **Social Context:** The cartoon reflects early-1900s attitudes toward automobiles as novel, urban inventions entering traditional countryside spaces, highlighting the cultural gap between modernizing cities and slower-changing rural areas.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Motorist—Is there a William Jones around here, my good man? Villager—Y ep. “Where can I “Jes’ beyond the bridge thar’. find him?” “Tsn’t that a cemetery?” “Yep. Film Pri-mer of the Folk By Harry J. SMALLEY The He-ro-ine. T HIS, fel-lers, is the hu-man Peach in our Or-chard of Joy. The an-i-mat-ed rose of the world’s flow- er gar-den. Of-ten we wish we were a gar-den-er in-stead of a strug-gling au-thor. She is the he-ro-ine! No, no! Do not pro-nounce her like “qui-nine”’!—the oth-er way! She is the sole rea-son for the won- der-ful in-crease in the pop-u-lat-ion of Los Ang-e-les. Ev-er-y man east of the Pa-cif-ic tried to get near the he-ro-ine when they found out where she lived. She is to the eye what ice-cream is to the pal-ate and gosh, but the flav-or lasts. We would rath-er gaze on her than be pre-sent-ed with a tick-et to Cu-ba with all ex-pen-ses paid. Peo-ple who know us will not believe this but it is near-ly true. He’s dead.” Her heart is as in-no-cent of mean- ness as a Fi-ji Is-land-er is of sus- pen-ders and her hon-or is of con- sid-er-able mag-ni-tude. She is bright and mer-ry and knows noth-ing of sin and so forth, but you just try to get fresh and see what hap-pens. Ten thou-sand cel-lu-loid vill-ains were killed last year while her hon-or was be-ing pro-tect-ed. Hea-ven al-ways helps the he-ro- ine. So does the sce-nar-io wri-ter and the he-ro. The make-up box ass-ists al-so. She is the on-ly rea-son we tol-er- ate the he-ro. To see her we have to stand for him. She is why we do not be-lieve press-ag-ents lie all the time. When- ev-er they boost her we know they are tell-ing the truth and we would bet on it. She is all gur-rul, all the time, and a law should be passed making all pro-duc-ers have all their screen char-act-ers all he-ro-ines. Hey, fel- lers? All he-ro-ines are beau-ti-ful, no- 3 ble, spunk-y and un-self-ish. Some- times we won-der why we nev-er find them in real life a-mong our neigh- bors. We nev-er do, do we? She is what ev-er-y wo-man should be and what ev-er-y wo-man thinks she could be if she only had the chance. Ha, ha! She is what ev-er-y man hopes to get for a wife, and nev-er does. Darn the luck! She is the rea-son mar-ried men wish they had wait-ed a lit-tle lon- ger. She is the near-est most men will ev-er get to see-ing an an-gel. So they go oft-en and look hard. Al-though as ap-pe-tiz-ing as a dill pick-le she fills our hearts with en-vy and hate. Hold on, don’t strike us! We en-vy the he-ro who cops her kiss-es and hate the vill-ain who an- noys her so dread-ful-ly. The son of gun. But the he-ro-ine think about it. real-ly mar-ried to the he-ro. gur-rul! fate is not always kind to at that, come to Some-times she, is Poor comicbooks.com