Judge, 1927-12-03 · page 9 of 36
Judge — December 3, 1927 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page **Main Content:** Two distinct pieces satirizing American consumer culture and etiquette circa 1910s-1920s. **"All Wrong"** (left): A complaint letter to a hotel manager detailing egregious overcharges—$3.65 for laundry, inflated room/meal rates, price-gouging at the newsstand and valet services. The writer, signed "A Recent Guest," identifies himself as a traveling salesman and compares the hotel to highway robbery. A postscript from "Arthur L. Lippmann" adds petty complaints about towel coarseness and monogram mismatches, satirizing both the hotel's greed and wealthy guests' trivial snobbery. **"You Call Yourself a Man Yet You Wear Spats!"** (right): A cartoon mocking masculine pretense. The illustrated anecdote about a furniture salesman "shaving off" sideburns plays on the double meaning; the golf cartoon below ridicules men obsessing over appearance (hats, coats) while eating—criticizing masculine vanity masked as refinement. **Overall satire:** American commercialism exploiting travelers while simultaneously enforcing artificial social conventions around class status and masculinity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
All Wrong Manager of the Gargantuan Hotel, Acropolis City, Ohio. Dear Sir: Having recently spent a night at your hostelry, I desire to call your attention to the fact that your laundry charged me $3.65 for doing three shirts, a pair of socks and four handkerchiefs. You billed me $6.00 a day for a room overlooking the railroad yards and your $2.00 table d’hote dinner would be high at 60c. To tip one of your bell-hops less than four bits is a subtle way to invite mayhem, At your news- stand one p: 5c for a fifteen cent pack of cigarettes and two cent newspapers sell at a nickel. Your. valet “presses” suits at $1.50 each and the porter only charges a 33 per cent ad- vance when securing railroad tickets. You are an insult to the members of the Great Army of Occupation—the traveling sales- men of Ameri You are high- waymen, robbers, bandits, cheats ! Jesse James should have been your manager and Gyp the Blood your maitre d’hotel. Indignantl) ours, A Recent Guest P. S. My wife desires me to add that your bath towels are too coarse and the blue design in them does not harmonize with the color scheme of our bathroom. Your blankets are a little too short and do not look just right on our beds. Our family initial being “L,” the “G” in the middle of the counterpanes and_bath- mats occasions some comment when friends drop in to see us. The French prints that you hang in your rooms look a bit out of place in our Spanish living room, and the silver water decanter doesn’t quite match our cream pitcher and sugar bowl. —Arrucr L, Lippmann “Uncle Hank Clark put Bug- ville on the map last week,” proudly boasts the Bugville Ban- ner. “He was the first man in the wide, wide world to be hit by a new Ford.” JUDGE YET YOU WEAR SPATS! A rib approached a furniture salesman one time and inquired, i “What has become of those lovely sideboards you had when I was iis here last?” “Tee hee!” tittered the blushing vendor. “I shaved them } off, lady!” Kindly watch your hat and coat while eating. | a) | This, Mr. Duffer, is the new “You Can’t Miss It” club comicbooks.com