Judge, 1926-05-01 · page 18 of 36
Judge — May 1, 1926 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes organized crime as a legitimate business sector. The top cartoon shows a chaotic multi-story building where criminals conduct various illegal activities—depicted as commonplace work. The text parodies business journalism, presenting criminal enterprises as "New Incorporations" and industrial operations: the "Payroll Robbing Company," "Hotel Towel Pilfering Company," and "Chelsea Check Raising and Note Forging Corporation" are treated like actual corporations with officers, directors, and business strategies. The satire works by applying legitimate business language and structure to crime. References to bankruptcy filings, personnel transfers (to prisons like Ossining and Atlanta), and market forecasts ("Payroll robbing should improve by leaps and bounds") mock both organized crime's scale and the era's business reporting. The bottom cartoon jokes about car theft as criminal entrepreneurs solve technical problems—a wry commentary on how sophisticated criminal operations had become. The overall message: organized crime had become so established and systematized it functioned like legitimate industry, a pointed criticism of law enforcement's inability to control it.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The liabi include three new jail sentences just issued to. the partners. The Chelsea Check Raising and Note Forging Corporation has been compelled to reduce its personnel temporarily. One of the partners has been compelled to go to Atlanta for a few s and the other to Ossining, » he company i still doing bus t the old stand. y, trading as discontinue his company on Nove come a sailor on Coast Guard vessel. He sold his route to the Ajax Auto Pilfering Associates and the latter will now cover his former territory. New Incorporations Kid Grogan, Kid Canelli and Gyp Pisani are named as officers 1 directors in the Payroll Robbing Company ust formed. It is said the incorporators are well known in the trade and should be successful unless shot too soot The Hotel Towel Pilfering Com- pany will cover all the first-class hotels in the country. Prominent on the board of directors are three well-known former traveling sal men. “A good hundred towels day will be our record,” the president, Dave Harris. The Outlool: Payroll robbing should improve by leaps and bounds, while automobile stealing will fall off until the spring. There will be healthy activity in diamond stealing and check forging. It is recommended that expansion be attempted slowly until pawn- shop prices go higher. Cyrano From the Criminals’ Chronicle The New and Progressive Trade Paper Crime Is Now One of the Big Industries of the Country. Annual Returns in It Total High in the Hun- dreds of Millions Business Troubles Te Ace-High Safe-Blowing Com- pany filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy, listing among assets =— — ten pairs of rubber gloves, 200 hy not cause the backfire to discharge a load of buckshot so that the car can do pounds of dynamite and eight drills. execution in two directions at once? comicbooks.com