Judge, 1931-02-07 · page 9 of 36
Judge — February 7, 1931 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Judge Magazine Page Analysis This page contains three humorous pieces satirizing early 20th-century American life: **"Just One of Those Days"** depicts a newspaper columnist (Calvin) struggling to fill his daily feature. The satire mocks both the columnist's creative bankruptcy and reader expectations—suggesting newspapers padded space with trivial gossip items, recycled jokes, and vapid content. The exchange suggests the public wanted "conservative thoughts" while editors wanted filler. **"How to Build a Subway"** is a brief joke mocking subway construction's crowding problem—the "solution" is absurdist: dig a hole, fill it with people. **The bear/lion/car tracks joke** plays on logical fallacy: hunters can reliably track animals by their prints, but streetcar tracks lead unpredictably to trolleys (or nothing), mocking the era's unreliable public transportation. The top cartoon shows a man at a desk with papers, likely the same columnist, satirizing journalism's tedious demands and deadlines.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE \ =x eraphs describing the linoleum in our graphs describing ( SNS kitchen, telling how hard it is to keep ( servants, and how you wish someone would send you some old-fashioned apple butter or watermelon rind pre- No, Gra n ex-president cannot do such things. “How about saying that all you wis what you din the papers, and have the papers print it in. big type so it would almost fill the col umn “Tm afraid not.” “Well, I don’t see why you never get a day or so ahead with that col- umn so you could get outside and enjoy this lovely weather... .” Ah, that’s it! Weather! is one of our greatest American insti- tutions, and while fect, neverthel good citizens t is not always per- s, it is the duty of accept the weather cheerfully! There, how's that for a start?” —Cirr Jounson How to Build a Subway Make an excavation by taking away a lot of dirt and rock and then fill this excavation with people. Hunters know that if you follow bear tracks you will come upon a bear, and the same holds true of lion tracks or rabbit tracks or wolf tracks; the only tracks you can’t be sure of are car track: u never know whether you'll find a trolley or not. Just One of Those Days s H Ave you written your daily fea- ture yet, Calvin?” “No. L don't seem to have any good ideas today, Grace.” ‘You might fill up the space with some of those little items with dots between them, like ‘Ray Long wears purple garters. ... ‘Roy Howard has got new spats.” ... ‘It's a boy at the Moore's.’ ... ‘Wonder what a thinks about?’ .. . and things like My public looks to me for “Couldn't you print a lot of old jokes, quoting Broadway having told them to you? people as hat wouldn't do, either.” “Why not write eight or ten para- comicbooks.com