Judge, 1928-04-07 · page 22 of 36
Judge — April 7, 1928 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes superstition through a first-person narrative. The protagonist abandons superstitious beliefs (avoiding salt spills, touching telephone poles, refusing two-dollar bills) after deciding superstition is irrational. He then spends Friday the 13th deliberately breaking every superstitious taboo—walking on the wrong side of bed, breaking mirrors, spilling salt, carrying a black cat. The joke's punchline: his day becomes genuinely disastrous, culminating in **getting married**—presented as the ultimate bad luck consequence. This suggests marriage itself is humorously framed as superstition's worst possible curse. The secondary jokes include a waiter padding a $13 dinner bill to $20 (treating the unlucky number seriously), and a closing quip about women marrying golfers versus "companionate" husbands. The cartoons show the protagonist's mishaps and a pedestrian viewing the moon (a superstition-related image). The satire mocks both superstition and, more sharply, marriage itself as a cautionary outcome.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE — | Rotten Luck 4 I used to be superstitious. 7 When I spilled salt (and I always spilling salt), I threw a pinch of it over my right shoul- der; when I walked down the street, I touched all the telephone . I never killed a spider, cepted a two-dollar bill, or slept. in a haunted house over- night. I was good. And then one day I went crazy. It was F the thirteenth; and the thought suddenly oc- curred to me: “Suppose there really isn’t’ anything in this superstition business? What's the use of acting like a witch- ridden peasant of the Middle Ages? Why believe in devils and \ bogy men? I'm through with it!” Immediately my age-old inhibi- tions and repressions dropped | away from me, and I breathed the air of a new freedom. Getting out of the wrong side of bed, I broke my shaving mirror, fell downstairs, and sat down to breakfast with my twelve broth- ers and sisters, taking care to all over them, black cat Felice in my arms and started on a mad carnival of superstition-breaking. Before the day was ended and I looked at the moon over the wrong shoulder, I had shattered and defied every single conven- tion of safety that the mind of man, in its ignorant fear, had formulated. But now I begin to see that there is something in it, after all. I'll never be such a fool again; I'm cured. Why, one of the things I did that day was to get married! Se NLR. J. “That waiter must be super- stitious.”” “What makes you think so?” “This dinner check totals just thirteen dollars and he has put it down at twenty.” Some women acquire com- panionate husbands, and some marry golf players. The superstitious pedestrian sees a new “Moon” over his left shoulder, comicbooks.com