Judge, 1923-07-07 · page 8 of 36
Judge — July 7, 1923 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "An Evening at an Amusement Park" - Judge Magazine This is a humorous short story by Frank H. Williams depicting working-class visitors to an early 20th-century amusement park. The cartoon illustration shows a chaotic scene of automobiles, couples, and crowds at what appears to be a roller coaster or similar attraction. The narrative voice is a cynical man explaining the park's economics and attractions to a young companion ("kid"), mentioning the operator makes "a million dollars a minute" from dance floors and rides. He gossips about Eddie Smith, a popular banjo player with many admirers, calling him a "dumb-bell" despite his appeal. The story satirizes the narrator's own contradictions—he complains about poor-quality sodas while ruining them, jokes about causing accidents, and threatens lawsuits over lost hats. It captures period attitudes toward modern commercial entertainment, affordable leisure for ordinary people, and the somewhat reckless attitude toward safety at these early amusement venues.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
An Evening at an Amusement Park by Frank H. Williams FLoor, kid, I'll s cut the dan hort when they got a crowd like this. Two twist and a turn and then back to thi i The bird that runs this place makes a million dollars a minute. Count up how many couples there are on the floor and multiply by five cents, thirt times an hour. It makes you diz} If I had all that money I’d buy you a flock of diamonds and a bevy of auto- mobiles. Look at that Eddie Smith playing the banjo right in front, there in the orchestra. Some sheik. He knows it too. He’s got more girls hanging around him than Ford has flivvers. He’s a dumb-bell, though, take it from me. Don’t fall for him, kid. Believe say. They The lady traffic cop sees Valentino. what I'm telling you about him. Always believe everything I tell you and you'll never know what you've missed. le at it out of here. of slipping a jitney to old Man Grab-It very other minute sort of gives me a inking sensation in the region of the appendix. Besides I'm out of tickets and it’s a thousand miles around to the ticket office. Dja ever sample their sodies out here? Not so good, but not so bad. Le! lap up a couple. Some suds, eh? You heard me order chocolate, didn’t you? Well, if this is chocolate I’m a cannibal king. Tastes more like coffee to me. Can’t say I like it much. I’m going to ruin it, though, break the straws and everything. I'm a devil in my own home town, but deviling ain’t what it used to be. Now for the rolly coaster. 6 This thing Ought to have had our sodies afterwards. Oh, well, we can replace ‘em with a couple hat's a couple of sodies in Some day they're going to ha lent on this thing. Something’s going to break and the folks that’s on it are going to wake up in an adjacent county. If busted we'd just keep right on going, over the road tracks, across the packing house and slosh into Mud Creek, eighteen miles from here. Next time I go fishing for mud turtles in Mud Creek I'm coming out here with an ax and cut something and then climb on board and, swish, I'll be there. Some folks are born inventors that way. If I lose my hat on this fool thing I'm going to sue the company for damages. They ought to have a bunch of hat collectors hanging around down below (Continued on page 26) anything comicbooks.com