Judge, 1936-09 · page 10 of 36
Judge — September 1936 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Mistress Pepys' Journal" Explanation This is a humor column mimicking Samuel Pepys's famous 17th-century diary, updated to contemporary (1920s) American social life. The column satirizes upper-class leisure activities and social pretensions. The main cartoon depicts a woman on a raft with two men below, captioned "Remember, if anything happens on this trip I want you on my raft"—a joke about prioritizing one's romantic interest in an emergency over actual safety or propriety. The text describes summer social events: bridge games, charity events, and fortune-telling. A running gag involves the "Goodyears'" fashion of composing witty couplets in conversation, which spreads through the community so thoroughly that even servants memorize and post them. The humor targets how fashionable trends cascade through society, and the absurdity of upper-class women trying to appear clever through forced verse-composition. The diary format allows gentle mockery of their vanities, trivial concerns, and self-absorption.
📄 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 C IOPERSTOWN, N.Y August 1 By Baird Leonard learning to tell fortunes by rds, albeit Up betimes and, the day bidding Scam warns me my lite will not be worth if my ability in this connection by to be warmish, did on my coral livin Hi with Nate Howell's remark several years ago discovered, whe did 1 looks, cies, that E will be a when I ete, | gette and ensconced my t der a shade tree on when | yowhy on et tances will pester me for prop sand papers temperature Huling te net marry Tt to charity y of my fellow guests she vim not y and retreat attractive, 1 few rto Alice Mark licious corn erisy to the mushr ouse, Wher a comfortabl that Go I give me srola Be at the sample of it L had saved lenient most gay ina nd T Mifieation, and thet It if He did ght not be crushed 1 to powder ist. Then fell to and was minded of © studying the chart from w tam ts season, until it would scem: that tter fish Jett ins the ht. Which, nlessly tre were no t he c soucl me, could be heer e. since my own prete is for tinned salmon ind [did simile to ler the uproar ito which TE could set tl it In the atte: Bowers with the able by men "COAL benetit to which the entire county came in droves, and L did HM in at several tables literally for charity, for one partner led an unsup declaration, 3 ter announced that she did not play the same system for a prize that she played for money. But the day was not entirely lost. since | did meet a woman from a Dering hamlet whose chirurgeon had ordere | her to lose one hundred pounds, whic! she could well atford, and [did feel like a wraith beside her. and was at some pains not to ask her why she felt to wear a pale pink dres A UST 2.—Lay late. composing a . few of the couplets in which al most all) local conversation is ducted since the Goodyears’ ress set the fashion, for Jea discover one day that the girl h ost of her instructions inte rhyn pasted them on the pantry wall, su ncing dinner, Halt! toon the pepper and Mrs. Goodyear, 1 essume “Remember, if anything happens on this trip 7 want you on my raft.” Of my own efforts this morning comicbooks.com