Judge, 1924-04-05 · page 5 of 36
Judge — April 5, 1924 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "An Ice Game" - Judge Magazine Satire This page satirizes **Dumb Drop**, a gambling game allegedly invented by Arctic explorers and played by Inuit peoples. The satire mocks the game's exotic appeal to wealthy society—the text notes that when the "Emperor of the Arctic Ocean" discovered the North Pole, he introduced this exclusive pastime. The upper cartoon shows aristocrats playing in a winter setting. The lower cartoon depicts enthusiastic card players, captioned "Bridge Addict," suggesting wealthy Americans were obsessed with card games. The satire targets both the fashionable obsession with Arctic exploration narratives (popular in this era) and the gambling culture among the elite. By presenting an absurd "Arctic" game, Judge ridicules how wealthy society exoticizes distant cultures and embraces any novelty, no matter how trivial.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
An Ice Gare Ls folks! Stop Mah Jonging a minute, and let me give you the low-down on a new game, never before heard of below the Arctic Circle. The name of this game is Dumb Drop. I got it from Doctor Cook, and he got it from the King of Greenland. Dumb Drop!—Don't let anybody sell you any other name. Some call it Glum Drop and others call it Bum Drop. But these are merely the names for low gambling games, 1 dom- inoes, played by the tic santry. The real, high-class, diversion of Arctic royalty is Dumb Drop. Up to twenty 's ago only two people in the world were permitted to play it—the emperor of the Arctic Ocean (whose other title is king of Greenlandy and the heir ff Th ¥ apparent. The empress might look ji! YY >< Wig on, but might not play. Anybody ; Uy oY ; else who even mentioned the name of f the game was immediately seized Me and frozen to death in the emperor's ice box. But when Doc Cook discovered the North Pole, the emp. clubbily let Bs Host—Atre they still playing Mah Jongg inside? “Yes. Don’t you find anything good in the game at all?” “Well, it keeps me out in the open air.” him in on the secret. The Eskimos got sore about this, rebelled, took the emp. captive, and only permitted him to retain his crown on the condition that he would spill ’em the news about Dumb Drop. He spilled it. Yet even after that, none but Esqui- maux and Doctor Cook and myself were permitted to play the game. Now, however, the bars have been let down. The emperor of the Arctic Ocean is anxious to conquer the world for the imos. But he wishes to conquer it bloodlessly, as the Chinese have done, with a game. He knows Dumb Drop has it all over Mah Jong, and he has therefore written a book of instructions which T am commissioned to translate and introduce to the world. To give you an idea of the fascinating possibilities of the game I shall quote from the al Eskimo Hoyle at random: ris game is played with cubes of painted over with confectioner’s Phe suits are Walrus, Kyak, Igloo, and Aurora Borealis. “The second step of the game is Bridge Addict (to opponent who has ventured a small joke)—Say, you! called Melting the Igloo, This is What do you think this is? A pastime! (Continued on page 30) comicbooks.com