Puck's Christmas Tree

Ehrhart crowds every inch of this double-page spread with stock characters from Puck's recurring cast, each receiving a gift that skewers their defining vice or predicament. At center, the magazine's imp-mascot Puck stands on a stepladder and dangles a crown toward "Miss Gotrox," the nouveau-riche social climber straining upward. Around the tree: a reckless automobile driver gets Horse Liniment; a hen-pecked husband receives theater tickets to Taming of the Shrew, which his contemptuous wife rejects; a tyrannical cook clutches an alarm clock; a housemaid gets China cement. The Irishman holding "English Soldiers" marked "For Patrick" deploys the broad ethnic caricature—exaggerated jaw, comic affect—typical of late-Victorian illustrated humor, in which Irish immigrants were routinely lampooned as bellicose and simple. The caption reads: "A Little Something for Each of His Characters." The cartoon's satirical engine is social taxonomy: Puck flatters readers by positioning them as observers of other people's embarrassing hungers.