Judge, 1927-06-11 · page 10 of 36
Judge — June 11, 1927 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Judge Magazine Page Analysis This page contains three humor pieces typical of early 20th-century American satire: 1. **"A Lunatic Along the Highway"** (main story): A motorist with car trouble encounters a helpful stranger offering assistance. The narrator, assuming the man is insane, humors him by pretending to be Napoleon plotting against spies. The "lunatic" panics and drives away at high speed—the joke being that the motorist's pretense of madness actually frightened the normal person away. 2. **The cartoons** depict absurdist scenarios: a woman reading "Birth Control Reviews" (disguised as *Ladies' Home Journal*), an English swimmer mistaking the Statue of Liberty for guidance, and "Aunt Lizzie" encountering fantastical creatures in her bathtub—all playing on social anxieties and embarrassment around contemporary topics. 3. **Brief jokes** at bottom mock palmistry and female appearance. The humor relies on period-specific concerns: birth control taboos, immigration, mental illness stigma, and beauty standards—subjects *Judge* treated with irreverent mockery.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE “Aww, Constance! I seen you reading the ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ last night!” Control Rev "hat wasn’t no ‘Ladies’ Home Journal.’ That was the ‘Birth Eneusu Cuannen Swimmer—Good night! There’s the Statue of Liberty! I must have gotten turned around in my directions. Why Aunt Lizzie never afterward felt comfortable in her bath, A Lunatic Along the Highway I've read a lot about maniacs and always wondered what it would fee e to come f; face with a real, honest-to-Gawd lunatic. Last Sunday I had the expe- rienc Something went wrong with the distributor, so I lifted the hood of the started fooling with the retor. Suddenly another swung out the traffic and stopped beside mine. The driver leaned out and shouted something. It as drowned in the roar of passing cars. He repeated it, and I made ou “Can I help yo I realized at once, that here was a er. “If you're out of gas,” he in- sisted, “I think I can crawl under my car and drain a gallon or two for you.” The man was absolutely off his bean of course, zy man. Maybe I'd better give you a tow to the nearest garage,” he in- sisted, “or else I can drive in and bring you out a mechanic.” I remembered that the best way to get along with lunatics was to » them. So I peered around walked over to his and whispered confidential “TI, too, am in the service of his y, the emperor! Your secret afe with me, duke! I have paused by the wayside to wait for the spies who are even now plotting against us! iY, Napoleon, lest they steal your invention while you are car ay It worked fine. He let in his clutch so fast that he almost tore out his differential and kept put- ting on speed as long as I could see his car. They’re queer bugs, lunaties. —Cuer Jounson R&S Amateur Palmist—You are going to have trouble with a tall, dark woman. Mr. Meekt; married her. y—I've had it. I SAS We know a girl so homely she gets a silhouette taken front face. a comicbooks.com