Judge, 1882-06-17 · page 5 of 16
Judge — June 17, 1882 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical cartoon illustrates the concept of how different people encounter and handle life's troubles. The central horseshoe frame contains scenes of a man (McGuffin) dealing with a horse purchase—likely representing life's unpredictable challenges. The accompanying essay, titled "A Burst of Confidence," discusses how people respond to misfortune. It notes that while most people bounce between troubles without letting them get close, the most common coping mechanism is drinking. The piece satirizes a particular type of man—one who is "matrimonially unhappy" due to a bad marriage, infidelity, or divorce—and suggests that such a man typically "takes to drink" as his response to difficulty. The cartoon mocks both the naïveté of facing life's troubles and the era's widespread assumption that alcoholism was the gentleman's default escape from personal and social problems.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
McGUFFIN HAS TWO EXPERILNCES IN BUYING A HORSE, A Burst of Confidence. A very sinall minority go through life play- | ing ledore and Ix the course of your judicial career, did | fortune, tossing it ne you ever notice the different w of meeting trouble ? kind ‘That isa very common expression we onen shuttlecock with mis. here, now there, but | Especially ‘ays men have | never letting it approach very near their | rimonially uppy—who has T mean trouble of any | persons. mateh, or whose wif a wife seized with the spring bonnet | But the most popular of all ways to wel- | cus-rider, or bec fever, a baby with the croup, rheumatism, | come trouble—rather, 1 should say, to meet | art corns, bunions, the want of moncy, the girl | it—is to take to drink. who is forever jealous of you—in short, any- thing unpleasant this true of a man who is mat ade a bad with a cir- ften flirting in the “ ss with, we prominent ele unusually sue’ sa “mas! ‘Poor fellow, he is in great trouble, and Or, worse still, if the man i: he’s taken to drink.” | clo} 1 too divorced —in either of these comicbooks.com