Judge, 1926-10-30 · page 8 of 36
Judge — October 30, 1926 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis: "Sunday With the Vital Statistics" This two-part satire mocks wives' Sunday newspaper habits disrupting husbands' pursuits. **Top section:** A husband seeks divorce because his wife constantly reads Sunday paper gossip aloud—social announcements about engagements, births, and deaths—while he tries to write poetry. Judge Kelby sympathizes, admitting he pays alimony "for the same reason myself," suggesting this is a widespread marital complaint. **Bottom cartoon:** Titled "A French chauffeur's idea of heaven," depicts a car noisily honking and sputtering through clouds, mocking French automotive culture as inherently loud and unreliable—a period stereotype of French engineering and driving habits. The satire targets 1920s domestic frustrations (wives' obsession with Sunday papers' vital statistics and gossip) and xenophobic humor about French automobiles and driving. Both jokes assume male audience frustration with women's interests and foreign incompetence.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
that Chub Wetherfield’s daughter is engaged to that Hardy bey from Saginaw. He'll never amount to a thing. [listen attentively, your honor and start to polish my first line. About two seconds pass and she suddenly shrieks, ‘Well, what do you know about that! — Vera Thomas has a baby. Remember Vera as a girl in Fort Wayne? — Just listen to this announcement “How long has this been going on?” “For years and years. your honor About thirty) seconds elapse. and then she shouts. *L sce that Marcella Tirebender was married yesterday in the main hall of the Luxuria Hotel.” [don’t answer her at all. A couple of minutes later she exclaims, ‘Well, well. well! Poor old) Dan Straw- shoulder died. And) Mrs. Bemus. too. And-—-of all things Mrs. Whipplecrumber announces her en- gagement to Rufus Rexpuff. 1 grit my teeth and try to concentrate on my work. But to no avail. A second later, ‘Mr. and Mrs. H. Dewey Ajax announce with pleasure the marriage of their daughter Viola—you re- member little Viola. Why. she used to ran after me in the fields back home—'” “Petition granted.” said Judge Kelby. “Oh, how you've suffered. I'm paying alimony for the same He—I'm darn glad 1 didn't get that divorce! reason myself!” Hugh Wood Sunday With the Vital Statis “Yo ask for a divorce on the grounds that your wife per- sisted in purchasing the Sunday newspapers against your wishes,” mused Judge Kelby. “LT do,” answered Hank Hanlon whose syndicated “Poems of Cheer™ brighten breakfasts from Maine to California. “A most unusual request,” said the judge. “Now, if your reason were incompatibility or cruelty or a fondness for eating crackers in bed, I might Hank Hanlon wept before the bar of justice. “Unusual! Please, your honor, listen to me. I just get com- fortably settled in my den starting on the first line of a masterpiece when she calls in to me, ‘Oh, Hank, I see a ae wn Tie Pais) comicbooks.com