Judge, 1926-06-26 · page 23 of 37
Judge — June 26, 1926 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Judge* magazine page satirizes prison life through a convict's first-person account. The narrator—identified only as "Convict No. 711"—uses dark humor to undermine sentimentalist claims that prisoners are "coddled." The satire works by deadpan juxtaposition: he describes his cellmate's job dusting the electric chair and his own work making chairs as sources of workplace humor, playing checkers with shirt buttons on stone floors, and inmates' "dangerous games" like drilling through roofs—implying these constitute their entertainment and rebellion. The upper cartoon depicts a Black woman asking a ticket agent for passage to "Magnolia," which the agent cannot locate on a map. When she points to her suitcase, the joke suggests either geographical ignorance or a racial jab at Black dialect/spatial confusion. The bottom cartoon contrasts a boy who caught trout with a bent pin now attempting golf—satirizing social mobility or the absurdity of childhood skill transferring to adult activities. The overall tone mocks both prison conditions and naïve reformers' assumptions about prisoner welfare.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Fun In a Penitentiary Or How Prisoners Amuse Themselves by Convict No. T11 qunst of all, let me tell why I'm here in jail. I am a thief. I admit it. I have robbed homes and cigar stores, sold real estate that didn’t exist just because I thought 1 had to, put slugs in the subway turn- stolen and hocked my grand- mother’s false teeth, and committed other crimes too numerous to men- tion. But that ain't specifically why I'm here. Specifically, I'm here be- cause I got caught. There are some students of prison life who claim prisoners are coddled. I beg to take issue with these gentle- men. We prisoners are not coddled -we're hard-boiled. But we have our fun in our own way. For in- stance, when we laugh at a visiting committee of uplifters, we laugh in- ternally. Or on one side of our faces —the side farthest from the visiting committee. My roommate and I amuse our- selves evenings by telling jokes to each other. His job in the prison is to keep the electric chair dusted off, and this is pretty soft as dust doesn’t get much of a chance to collect on it these days. He tells me how scared some of the spectators at an execution look and other comical things. I work standing up in the chair fac- tory. I tell my roommate how I work standing up making chairs and this always gives him a laugh. Every time I tell him this, he laughs. This Oke ides of wwhat.sve.hiaye Cotoren Wows (to ticket agent) —I want a ticket for Magnolia, please. * Ticker AGENT (after studying railroad map for ten minutes)—Auntie, where is Magnolia? “Here’s Magnolia settin’ on de suitcase!” Of course, this isn’t the only way we amuse ourselves. We also play checkers. We haven't any checker board, but we use the squares on the stone floor for a board and buttons swiped off our shirts for Tam a better player than my partner. So far I have won 3,749 games, while he has won only 2,631. He hardly hope to catch up now as he's only in for seven years more, Others of our brethren play more dangerous games, such as drilling through the roof, sliding down the drainpipe and over the garden wall. These games need no explanations to readers but they need a lot of explanations to the warden. The kid who used to catch all the trout with a bent pin, takes to golf. R.C, O'Brien comicbooks.com