Judge — March 28, 1925 — page 26: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains two satirical cartoons about crossword puzzles, a craze sweeping America in the 1920s. **Top cartoon:** An artist appeals to a fashionable woman to sharpen his pencil, humorously suggesting that crossword puzzle-solving has worn down his pencil to a stub—a jab at the obsessive popularity of the puzzle craze. **Bottom cartoon:** Labeled "From an old tablet, showing that the crossword puzzle was not unknown to the ancients," this mock-historical image depicts ancient people engaged in what appears to be puzzle-solving activities. The satire mocks the crossword craze's overwhelming cultural dominance by sarcastically suggesting it's an ancient, timeless obsession rather than a new fad. Both cartoons ridicule how thoroughly crossword puzzles had captured the public imagination during this period, presenting the phenomenon as both frivolous and comically all-consuming.