Judge, 1925-08-15 · page 19 of 37
Judge — August 15, 1925 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct humor pieces satirizing early 20th-century advertising: **Top section** ("Unpublished Testimonials"): A mock testimonial for "Hargreave's Hair Upholstered Harmonicas." The joke is that the fictional product—a harmonica allegedly covered in hair—is absurdly useless, yet the testimonial writer claims it transformed his social life and musical abilities. The humor lies in the deliberately poor grammar and the testimonial's logic: buying a ridiculous product supposedly made him popular and allowed him to play better music. This satirizes deceptive advertising testimonials that made outlandish claims about products' life-changing powers. **Bottom section**: A cartoon captioned "Diagram showing Jonah's present position," depicting a whale in water with a small boat or structure emerging from it labeled "U.S.A." and "DEBT." This is a Depression-era political cartoon suggesting America is "inside" its debt problem, referencing the biblical Jonah swallowed by a whale—implying the nation is trapped in economic crisis.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
S itching on lights) —Bee-lieve me! That kid pultingthis cap pistol in the drawer with my ere they said that she never could get a is a dis- decent drink out of one of those 3 a little paper cups and she didn’t see why pt | anyone ever invented them. gh the \ I offered to give her tulips when I oon and \ returned from Holland and she said urtiums. \she’d meet me at the boat but she d them. eouldn’t allow me to kiss her unless ded and we were formally engaged. I told thing. er that was satisfactory to me. » her she Carroll Thomas O'Brien Died quiet in bed; The landlady's ceiling Fell down on his head. tue Unpublished Testimonials Or Why the Ad Men Have to Write Their Own Hargreave’s Hair Upholstered Har- monicas ALWAYS felt there was something my very best friends wouldn’t tell me but I know better now as I ain’t got none no more. Up until this year I wasn’t never invited out much until I read your ad with all them swell dames sittin’ round listening to this fella play the mouth organ. So I bought me one of your Hair Upholstered Harmonicas and now I can get all the good stations even out west at Philadelphia. I can play Old Lang Sign and Carry Me Out to Old Virginia and all them. I just want to thank you for my evenings is not dull any more and I get asked out a whole lot. I got asked out of three different places in one night last week. Wish you was here. Oh, boy! Richard C. Wallace Diagram showing Jonah’s present position. tit comicbooks.com