Judge, 1926-06-12 · page 9 of 36
Judge — June 12, 1926 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis: Judge Magazine Humor Page The top cartoon depicts a domestic scene at a police station where a householder requests permission to keep a gun for home protection—a straightforward joke about bureaucratic absurdity. The main content, "The Outline of Humor," is a comedic history series that deliberately mangles historical facts for laughs. It conflates unrelated figures (Julius Caesar with the biblical Samson, for instance) and creates nonsensical cause-and-effect narratives. The Rome section jokes that Brutus stabbed Caesar over a bad joke, causing Samson to demolish buildings in anger, thereby "explaining" Rome's fall through absurd logic. The Columbus section similarly fabricates ridiculous motivations: Queen Isabella finances his voyage on a whim about bicycle bells, and Columbus refuses to take an encyclopedia because "the pedals hurt my feet." The humor relies on readers recognizing how wildly these accounts distort actual history while maintaining a mock-serious explanatory tone. This style of deliberate historical mockery was characteristic of Judge's satirical approach to American wit.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE HovseHoiper—Say, listen, Sergeant, [ wanta get permission to keep a gun in th’ house! THE OUTLINE OF HUMOR Being a Plain History of Wit and Humor by Judge, Je. (Synopsis) Gosh, you should have read last week's installment! It was just too exciting—you wouldn't think history could be that way, would you? Way Rome Fetu T seems there were two Romans, one Mark Antony by name and Julius Caesar of Caesar, Caesar and Caesar. Well, they met one day in the Parthenon and Caesar thought he would kid (see Lardner’s “Roman Slang”) Antony so he said, “Well, Mark, has your wife been entertaining thisseason?” and Antony replied, “No, not very.” You wouldn’t believe it but Brutus and Samson happened to be passing at the moment and Brutus was so enraged at hearing such an old joke that he stabbed Caesar, and for no reason at all said, “How many eggs did you eat for breakfast?” And, View of Charleston about time of discovery of America (from an carly woodcut). smiling through clenched teeth, Caesar replied: “Et tu, Brute!” Now Samson had a very quick temper, too, and he hated practical jokes, so when he saw what a dirty trick Brutus had played on Caesar he began pushing buildings down in his rage and that’s how Rome fell. VI Time certainly flies, doesn’t it! Here we are up to 1492 and Columbus is about to discover America. And this is how Columbus happened to do such a foolish thing. It seems he was quite friendly with Queen Isa- bella, who got this quaint name because when a wee child she used to ask her father, “Is a bell on a bicycle necessary ? But we digress. It seems Isabella didn’t believe the earth was flat either and she told Chris (she always called him Chris when her husband wasn’t around) that she would furnish the money if he would go and discover something. Well, sir, Chris said to Isabella, “What am I going to discover?” which irritated her very much and she said ve reastically “Take an encyclopec And what do you think Chris said? “I would but the pedals hurt my feet!” This made Isabella so mad she had poor Chris banished from the land. Which goes to show what a funny thing fate is because if Chris hadn't been wandering around in the ocean wondering what to do with him- self he never would have discovered America! (Yes, there’s more next week!) comicbooks.com