Judge, 1923-06-02 · page 12 of 36
Judge — June 2, 1923 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Sport of Queens" Analysis This article satirizes women's enthusiasm for horse racing, contrasting their emotional, aesthetic engagement with men's more analytical approach. The author follows several women ("Laura," "Belle," and others) to the racetrack, mocking their understanding of the sport. The satire centers on female irrationality: Belle demonstrates she grasps only that the first horse wins (not understanding game strategy like baseball), while Laura finds jockeys "too cute" and is scandalized by tobacco-chewing—valuing appearance over athletic reality. The three sketched figures at bottom ("At the post," "They're off," "At the quarter") appear to be racing officials or bettors, their expressions conveying the progression of a race. The core joke is that women enjoy racing not for its sport but for visual spectacle—colorful jackets, small attractive jockeys—and the social experience of being at the track. The piece gently ridicules feminine superficiality while acknowledging women's genuine interest in the sport, typical of 1910s-era gender commentary in *Judge*.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
He “win” at Jamaica. uy it is called inside dope we don’t know. To differentiate it from some other brand? Per- haps there is such a thing as outside dope. It would be interesting to know. For then we could tell Laura. The question has bothered her for a long time. And whenever a question bothers her it bothers us too. She sees to that. Laura—and the other girls we've taken to the track—convince that horse racing is the sport of queens. Kings may enjoy it but not so much as the us THE-SPORT by Edward Anthony [or mysterious as can be, He plucks you by the sleeve And drags you to a place where he, Sans audience, can weave His tale of hunches, live and hot, That always opens at This point: “Don’t tell a soul! I It on the quiet that— queens we know. There is no “science” to bother them as in football and baseball. Even Belle—whom we used cleverly. to call Dumb Belle—understands a horse race. We know because one day at a when a gentleman in back of us Who won the last race?” Belle “Thunderclap — finished first.” This plainly indicates that Belle knows that the horse that finishes first wins. In a baseball game she never knows who is winning. The of a game we re- cently took her to see read, in the begin- ning of the third: Pink Sox. . 0 Brown Derbies.. .. m0 And from something Belle said it was plain she thought the Pink Sox w leading the Brown Derbies by a score of 20 to 18! N° sport is an ideal one for women +N unless it gives ‘em a chance to a some one or somethin ute.” Laura watching the jockeys weigh in, thinks th just too cute for anything” especially’ the gill-size ones who. we as much as a straw hat. Unreasonable child that she is, it would have been difficult to have convinced her that tobacco chewing is a natural part of a jockey’s job. But Laura would never have seen it that way. Her ideal would have been shattered. We know. She's At the post. They're off. 10 OF QUEENS Sketches by Weed And when you bid this chap good-by And think that you are free, You're greeted by another guy Who makes it plain that he Has information of import ‘That ought to bring you hope. He starts (Don’t tell a soul!), “Old sport, Just lope—” got some inside A half pound overweight. never felt: the rout us since she caught us working our jaws on a yard of Spark Plug Longchew. It is racing’s colorfulness that appeals to the girls—the gay scarlet jacket of “Red Coat” Murray (who for years has same At the quarter.