Judge, 1924-11-01 · page 12 of 36
Judge — November 1, 1924 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explanation for Modern Readers This page contains two distinct pieces from Judge magazine: **"The Absorbing Adventures of Professor Blotter"** is a humorous story mocking absurd "business efficiency" schemes. Professor Blotter supposedly solves workplace problems through circular logic—for the typewriter ribbon issue, he proposes changing the typewriter instead of the ribbon; for dangerous elevators, he invents a "stationary elevator" and moves the building around it instead. The satire targets early-20th-century management consultants and their often ridiculous "solutions" to simple problems. **The cartoon at top** shows a motorist telling a pedestrian he's lost his girlfriend—a joke about the era's new motorcycle culture and romantic entanglements. **"Funnybones"** and the poem about Yvette are brief, unrelated gags: one about expensive romantic gestures, the other a mildly risqué poem about a schoolgirl giving cigarettes rather than apples to teachers—poking fun at changing social norms regarding women and smoking.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Absorbing Adventures of Professor Blotter Proressor Buiorrer, who was the first man to find another way of measuring ocean liners beside stand- ing them on end beside the Wool- worth Tower, has recently lent his stupendous intellect to the problems of business efficiency. Blotter put his mind first of all to the question of changing the rib- bon in a typewriter without getting ink all over your fingers. According to Blotter this had never been ac- complished successfully until his in- vention. “My first idea was to introduce an s ribbon,” explained Blotter, “but this did not meet with much enthusiasm owing to the fact that the ribbon would not print. So I got around the difficulty by inventing a stationary ribbon instead.” “How does it work?” I “Simplicity itself,” he a “Instead of changing the ribbon in the typewriter, you merely change the typewriter and leave the ribbon as it is. Consequently, you never Pepestrian—Lost anything? Moror-cyciist— Yes. “What?” “My girl.” Funnybones /~ | Warm notes usually result in the { / expenditure of cold cash. \ —~ : —“Gudge mill pay 85 for cach one printed 7 “Yes, dear, that maid you had is now with me. But you needn't look 80 worried. I don’t believe half her gossip about you.” “Bis Wns soil your fingers.” He beamed at my expressions of incredulous amaze- ment, and added, “Oh, but that’s nothing. You should see how I settled the elevator problem.” “How was that?" Lasked. “T decided that the office elevator was entirely too dangerous, always dropping and hurting some one,” said Blotter. “And so I applied the same principle that was at the bottom of my typewriter invention.” “You introduced a new building without elevators?” I asked. “No, no,” said Blotter, “I in- vented a stationary elevator, and then had the building move up and down around it. Nothing to it!” Tagreed. Corey Ford PIS There was a wise girl named Yvette, Who was all the school-teachers’ pet. No apple she brought To the ladies who taught, But a fancy cork-tipped cigarette. Fairfax Downey J comicbooks.com