Judge, 1923-10-06 · page 9 of 36
Judge — October 6, 1923 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Good Old Days" by Walt Mason This satirical story mocks anti-tobacco crusaders by contrasting Sir Walter Raleigh's nostalgic romance with smoking against a modern scold's moral outrage. **The Setup:** An elderly Raleigh fondly recalls tobacco's comforts—how it sustained him during adventures and helps him endure his enemies' false accusations. Smoking, he claims, lets him forget his troubles. **The Satire:** A stern woman (representing contemporary anti-smoking reformers) denounces him as a "sinful skate," ranting that tobacco is a "rank disgrace" that stains teeth, pollutes homes, and "demoralizes men." She demands he suppress this "filthy weed." **The Joke:** Raleigh simply yawns, smokes on undisturbed, and dismissively calls for the constable—suggesting that such reformers are tiresome busybodies easily ignored. The humor lies in mocking the era's growing temperance and moral-reform movements by having their target remain completely unbothered by their sanctimonious complaints.
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| hf E Drawn by J. H. Fyre, Trapped! THE GOOD OLD DAYS in Warter Rateran smoked his pipe S hefore his castle door. “Tobacco,” said he, “when it’s ripe, will comfort urneyes sd to far western lands all sunk in heathen gloom, and thers I found, on every hand, tobacco trees in bloom. hosoms sore. I j “My comrades were intent on gold, and hone plied a pick; they dug up mount- aside and wold, that they might get rich quick, But I believed the greater need was for good stuff to smoke, and so I harvested the weed that comforts weary folk. My stately ships were filled with bales of burley and perique; tobacco scented all the gales that went by like a streak. “Ah, gossips. it’s a goodly weed, that no sane man abhors; so I learn to smoke it with all speed, and get some cuspidors. You know, my friends, how old King Jim is keen to get my head; this life for him will have no vim until he sees me dead. He fakes up charges every day, designed to get my goat; he says I stole a load of hay, or swiped a widow's shoat. His lies are difficult to mateh, so false and punk they be: he says his watermelon patch Jed thrice by me. I know some jay he'll have his wish, he’s a persistent by Walt Mason toff; and T will kneel me down, to have my block cut off. | And when the odsfish, perils gather round so thick they make me sweat, in my old pipe is comfort found: I smoke and I forget. ree Drawn by JULES AGKAMONTE Little Boy—Give me a kiss, won’t cha? Little Girl (suddenly grown up)—I should say not! Suppose I want people to say I'm robbing the cradle? ‘The troubles of the coming years won't bother me,’ T say; ‘to-morrow may be wet with tears—I have my pipe to-day.” ” ASP Now a heldame comes apaees a £2 sere and witchlike dame; and there are wrinkles on her face, and ringbones on her frame, “Sir Walter Raleigh,” “you area sinful skate: stuff men smoke cries this shrew, you've shipped in and chew, you brought it by the erat Tobacco is a rank dis- grace, demoralizing men; it) makes a lady's dwelling place smell like aw hog’s den, Tt should be stamped) and tramped beneath our fect in yonder dirt; it stains your whiskers and your teeth, and spoils the fairest shirt. Now harken, Walter, to my rede, Em speaking sooth, by heck! You must suppress this filthy weed or Tl climb on your neck! Pl or- ganize the 1 Tl pull that And smokers who would save their lives must throw their pipes away!” Sir Walter yawned a weary yawn, his pipe he filled and fired, and he remarked, “So help me, John, this beldame makes me tired! What, ho, the constable!” he (Continued on page 25) ghbor wives stunt to-day! comicbooks.com