Judge, 1934-12 · page 9 of 37
Judge — December 1934 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explaining "Mistress Pepys' Journal" to Modern Readers This is a humorous column mimicking Samuel Pepys' famous 17th-century diary, but set in the 1930s-40s. The narrator is a society wife complaining about everyday domestic annoyances: bills, husband's lack of appreciation for her reading, servants' gossip, and dinner party frustrations. The two cartoons illustrate specific complaints: the top shows a woman sending a note to "the milkman" (suggesting domestic logistics or possibly flirtation); the bottom depicts children listening to radio drama, captioning "The other rooms are full of soap! Heh! Heh!" — mocking radio soap operas' ubiquity and melodrama. The humor relies on contrasting dignified historical pastiche (Pepys-style diary language) with petty modern grievances. References to mystery novels and Rasputin indicate 1930s-40s popular culture. The satire gently mocks middle-class housewives' preoccupations while maintaining affectionate mockery of the narrator's own pretension.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Judge Mistress Pepys’ Journal By Baird Leonard C CTOBER 1. The first post full of bills, drat it! and [am resolved nevermore to go into a draper’s with- blinkers, so that I may emerge with nought but of thread for which TL entered. Fell to reading “A Girl Died Laughing,” an al orbing mystery yarn, the title causing my husband, poor wretch, to inquire who had been 1 book about ime, but my response was wu forasmuch as it is one of the minor tragedies of my life that Sam and I do not see eye to eye in regard to certain humorous writers, but I have learned that it is futile to reproach or attempt to convert him, in especial since the day he told me that it is more important with me si pirited, or him to weep an to fake a duo r do Id being overmobilized, as the psychiatrists , my enthusiasm for this and that is ient to cause astonishment to more placid tempera- for Lord! last week when I was reading Bob Bench- From Bed to Worse,” my guffaws were so loud that my handmaiden did keep appearing to learn if aught was amiss with me, and when I asked her if she knew that Mr. on rejoicing Bi y was the one who really killed Rasputin, and that . frescoes in the Sistine Chapel were not painted by albeit after thirteen years she should, God knows, he wonted Michelangelo at all but by a man named Harris who was to me. It was indeed she, who, in regard to the aforemen- sitting right there in Bob’s office as he wrote, she did regard tioned overmobilization, once quoth, “Mistress Pep, isn’t it me as if it might be as well to pack up for a sanitarium, lucky that I don’t get nervous along with you?” Walking through the town, I did meet up with Andy Abernethy, who had done himself so well last night that all ! ing he had been hearing stringed orchestras and brazen bands to left and right of him, so I bade him come home with’me and quaff a beaker of my own secret concoction which would make him feel though he had just quitted Sabbath School on a balmy Spring day, mor nd he does sw that should T put the formula on market I should have yachts and sunken gardens inside of a year, and that some day there would even be a monument to. yant Park. To a great dinner s night, mighty cast dowr the roast course was pc because ry again, Lord! [am so fed up as a dinner guest on fowl and game that I had liefer sit home and gnaw on a cold pork cho and as for squab, it is my conception the maximum of effort with the mini- mum of result, O OBER 2,—My Katie in betimes, with her mind so evidently on somewhat but the dinner menu that I did finally bid her out with it, where- upon, after virtually bolting all the doors “Boy, oh boy, that’s an old one!” (Page 28, please) comicbooks.com