Judge, 1933-08 · page 9 of 36
Judge — August 1933 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Mistress Pepys' Journal" - Judge Magazine Satire This column mimics Samuel Pepys's famous 17th-century diary but applies it to modern (1920s-era) upper-class domestic life. "Baird Leonard" writes as a wealthy woman reflecting on rural versus urban living, social obligations, and domestic servants. The satire mocks: 1. **Pretentious literary affectation** — adopting Pepys's style for trivial complaints (spider bites, loose hat crowns at church) 2. **Class consciousness** — obsession with servants, weekend country visits, and social propriety 3. **Modern inconveniences** — trucks rattling at midnight, heat, boredom contrasted with romanticized rural nostalgia The two cartoons illustrate domestic chaos: one showing a cluttered woman's room ("a perfect fit!"), the other depicting a woman struggling with an oversized hat ("The big gyp, sold that grandfather's glass that won't run!"). The humor lies in treating petty modern anxieties with mock-serious, literary grandeur—deflating upper-class pretension through absurdist juxtaposition of high style and mundane complaint.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Judge Mustress Pepys’ Journal By Baird Leonard July L— and that, OOPERSTOWN, N.Y bay 1 dering this in especial how easily | could ) point thi motor car, ud to me from book: fleet how my point of view about rural ed in recent years a time when [ would c tricts has c¢ r there was once gs out 2 1 persons wh turn from the provinces and pen such 1 ex- d try lines as I'm glad to be at home again to teach me a different game Among my own divans ¢ from the one I I to be 7 tL need a world of maids and men 5 reat black cherries Fa akes and fishes » very fine, als« y for so brief a the road trom tience ad dishe than one of s » the coul and French — span as a week-end without comi k ad which is now the — to indite of my Nor do I care to quit the town meal. irom my. sis For sea and countryside delights, hy the and she did tell me Arising early to get down how the Punch and Judy man whom On Monday, bored and full of bites he had hired to enterta quests at In those days [ held, with Samuel ny godehild’s birthday feast had swale Johnson, that “when one is tired of lowed istle in the middle of his Le 1 oO ired of lif 3ut now perfor ind “Fred had to ru the rush and clatter of the city ar poor wretch to the hospital, so he more distasteful to me than the bats and the rest ne party,” her cot on bulls of the vill: and albeit a harm- being, methinks, a triumph in misplaced insect buzzing about my bedlight Fin: emphasis ly up, and did on my — more terrible to me t wit an an army new green batiste, and then the banners, T had liefer e e it and i come to dress the top of my he: brothers than listen to a fleet of trucks [ had not been ten minutes in th loose parts tling at midnight lage before embeddin my scalp spider bit me on th the windows. superfluous poison in and causing a great id to thereon, and I could not but re- avenue under my ULY early —(Lord’s Day) from Dudley \ message arise Williams re- “There, Madam—a perfect fit!” pape “The big gyp, sold ( mea grand ass that won't runt” nesting arch, and when he thrice I did co t, albeit I warned him that if the sermon were dull, 1 should rise and halt the clergyman and bid Dudley tell the parishioners how he had ridden Kellsboro Jack to victory in the great race Aintree last March, and I do believe the poor wretch was apprehensive in th for when I tossed my head several times during the did regard me gravely, but my trouble was a sailor hat too loose in the crown, so that I did not dare bow my he: at the mention of the Holy G or fear the costly Reboux model would pite h off into the empty pew in front of us, and thereby create too much diversion for the chil- dren from the orpt ting in the transepts. 3radford waitin me to ccompany him to ad sent it in is connection, service he de ze who were sit- Young Tommy for me after the re- cessional, with such piteous supplication for me to ride h ster that I did through the co to be hanged, by the longest dare say wi me in his new road- finally relent, largely viction that he was born and he did take me round, which I a compliment, telling me, amongst other colorful bits, that con tract bridge is a required course at his preparatory school, making me feel that tion is on the mend, in spite of all that is said against it. For Lord! in the great university of life, the lowdown on the binomial theorem way mayhap educ is by no m profitable as a cer- tainty on when to go up with your Ace. The entire household quiet this nS noon because of the great heat, to de- feat which I did sneak off to the refrigeration room, where I sat reading “The Album” butchered, but alongside a inoffensive, recently lamb, comicbooks.com