Judge, 1926-01-09 · page 10 of 36
Judge — January 9, 1926 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Midnight Crime" - Judge Magazine Satire This is a darkly comic short story by Nate Collier that subverts melodramatic expectations. The narrative builds as a tragic tale of infanticide: a desperate woman on a bridge at midnight tosses a bundle into a river while Officer O'Hara heroically dives after it. The punchline reveal is the satire's point: the "tiny bundle" is not a baby—it's a **radio**. The man inside the door frantically asks, "What have you done with the radio! It's gone!" This mocks the melodramatic crime stories popular in contemporary fiction and pulp magazines, which Judge regularly parodied. It also likely reflects 1920s-30s anxieties about new technology (radios were relatively novel, expensive items). The joke works by exploiting readers' assumptions about what constitutes a "crime" worthy of such dramatic narrative treatment, only to reveal the "midnight crime" is mere petty theft—presented with absurdly overwrought prose. The accompanying cartoons provide lighter visual humor unrelated to the main story.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Dotrry—’Smatter, Wallie? The Midnight Crime tT was bitter cold. Gusts of blind- ing snow swept the icy pavement. Here and there a light glimmered through the darkness. Empty taxi- cabs slithered down the slippery street. A few pedestrians, with their heads drawn into their coat collars like turtles, leaned toward the wind and buffeted their way homeward. It was midnight. Mike O'Hara, pride of the force, paced his beat with 2 Dick Qveron, The magician meets an acquairtance. measured tread from Grogan’s gro- cery to the bridge and back to the grocery. Half of the street lights were out and the bridge was dark and gloomy where it stretched its heavy shadow across the black abyss of river. A girl in a heavy cloak, clasping a tiny bundle to her breast, edged her way along the iron railing of the bridge. She glanced back over her shoulder, but no one was following her. Slowly, jerkily, step by step, Doncha like me? she crept nearer the center of the great bridge. The wind whipped the cloak about her and lashed her face in sullen fury, but she crept on, still clutching the tiny bundle tighter to her breast. She clutched it tight. Oh, how she hated it! It squalled all day and all night. She who above all should have wanted it didn’t care for it. It seemed to need so much care. To-night would be the last of it, once in that surging flood its cries would be stilled for- ever! Finally reaching the middle of the bridge she leaned far out. Below yawned the hungry river, black as the raging Styx ‘neath the midnight sky. Slowly she drew the tiny bundle from beneath her cloak and with something like a low, hard laugh she tossed it far out. As it disappeared downward toward the black maw of the wind swept river she turned and ran back into the darkness. Once she looked back just in time to see Officer O'Hara leap to the top of the banister and dive down into that gaping abyss after the tiny bundle. She hurried the faster, making devious turns through darkened streets across slippery pavements, until at last she came to a door. She fell against it weak and breath- less. The door opened. “My God, Nell!” cried the man inside, “What have you done with the radio! It’s gone!” Nate Collier comicbooks.com