Judge — December 1937 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

"Herbie’s being a good boy for Santa Claus or he gets a smack in the puss!” set her foot on Independence Hall she rang the knell of European oppression and sounded the tocsin of American lib. erty, Mr. Peabody told himself, and felt pretty proud of his figure of speech. He wanted to share it with the world. He sat up, looking around importantly. It was pretty noisy in the room, so he slapped the big white shiny back for at- tention. He got it. “When 'Scilla Alden shtep foot on knell of liberty,” he intoned sonorously, “she .... she...” It was too bad. The world would feel this loss; but he had to face the fact: he had lost the thread of his thought. How- ever, he was not derailed. Why waste time on flowery words, anyway? . It was action that counted. bd Bo show ‘em!” he said in a rumbling aside. With all eyes upon him, and in the midst of a stupendous silence, Mr. Peabody reached into his glass, picked out the olive, and popped it into his mouth. He looked around proudly, smil- ing a tight, grimly triumphant smile as he chewed thrice and swallowed. “A lot of Sharlie Mortons, az wha’ they are,” he murmured once more. Then he leaned back to take a well-earned snooze. S.C. December 1937 Sad Thoughts for the Gay Season HE SAD thing about Christmas is that it comes just before New Year. And New Year is the time of license— not only moral but mobile. It is the time when car owners are reminded that the prospective Japanese cannon they've been driving around—and pushing up all grades over ten percent—must have a new license, that the cost of the license depends on the horse-power, and that the horse-power depends on something that was written on a card in a forgotten era. It isn’t the hang-over that makes car owners look that way on January 2nd. Not the philosophical car owners. It’s their heavy-eyed brooding over the in- justice the uniformed square jaw of the law will soon force upon them. Consider my car, for instance. She came to us in ‘28, because her owner pre- ferred the Cyranoesque gesture of giving her away to the insult offered by the dealer. We call her the Little Old Lady because of her delicacy and wrinkles and the little bit of business to be performed in every garage we pass. She has a weak heart—it would be murder to take her out on a cold night—and, in the matter of fuel, is in the last stages of galloping consumption. As for hills, she gets the flutters at the mere sight of them. But on the first of the year she must have a new license. “What horse-power?” the clerk will ask, and while my mind wanders in search of an adequate comparison—dog power, squirrel power, no-see-em—his eye catches the old familiar figures and his face lights up. “Ah, yes—thirty-two horse power.” ‘“STSN'T the government aware,” I pro- test, “that horses are mortal, that they sometimes die? Twenty-nine of those animals pegged out ten years ago. Taxing a man for dead horses! It's—it's im. moral.” “Ha ha,” he replies, handing me a receipt, “Very good; one on the Govern- ment. Twelve dollars, please.” Which is also very good, but not on the Government. —WituiaM T. BEAUCHAMP ‘comicbooks.com