Judge, 1928-02-04 · page 18 of 36
Judge — February 4, 1928 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous advice column parodying earnest educational content of the early 20th century. The page consists of four absurdist vignettes: 1. **Kangaroo "life education"** mocks parental anxiety about sex education by suggesting parents send their pet kangaroos to finishing school. 2. **Prairie dog nose clinic** satirizes urban pet obsession and commercial health crazes by depicting a veterinary epidemic among fashionable New Yorkers' prairie dogs. 3. **Canary cure** ridicules folk remedies and DIY pet care through an absurd "fresh air" headache treatment. 4. **Elephant leg repair** exaggerates the expense of veterinary fees and working-class ingenuity by showing a family performing surgery on their elephant using rope and a 73-year-old father. The satire targets class pretension, consumer gullibility, and the era's dawning obsession with professional expertise and commodified solutions to everyday problems—all wrapped in deliberately silly animal scenarios that undermine the serious tone being parodied.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE BOIDSAND BEAST (A Department for Indefatigable Naturalists, Con- ducted by the Eminent Dr. Theophrastus Seuss.) What Does Your Kangaroo Know About Life? Are you afraid to talk frankly to your kangaroo about life—and its complex problems? If so. send her to us for her education. A timely word of advice on the subject of life may save your little pet many a sigh and tear. The Kelley School for Kangaroos has taught the kangaroos of all the crowned heads of Europe. (ddv't.) Scene in a Fifth Ave. Prairie Dog Clinic At present a great epidemic of chapped noses is raging among the prairic dogs of New York City, and unless ns! imagine Times Square Do your t ther up a basketful th Ave. to have their noses painted with Gomulgene, the great antiseptic! Do it NOW before it is too late! Canary Lovers, Attention! Richard S. Hill, janitor of a prominent Park Avenue apartment house, has a novel way of curing his y of headaches. He simply fills his bellows with fresh night air and lets the little fellow have it in one ear and out the other. One Way of Cheating the Veterinarian “Where I live in Philadelph writes Bo MeMillan, “they carelessly leave the manholes uncovered, and scarcely a week goes by but what n ephant Ruth falls in and breaks one of her legs. Physicians’ fees are so blasted high that Papa and I have rigged up a way to fix Ruthie ourselves. Papa always holds the rope, and for a man of 73 I must say he does very well indeed.” comicbooks.com