Judge, 1885-01-03 · page 1 of 16
Judge — January 3, 1885 — page 1: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "A Malarial Production: Birth of a Democratic Year" This January 1885 cartoon satirizes the Democratic Party as diseased and corrupt. The grotesque figure labeled "Hard Times" emerges from a swamp marked "Official Malarky" (pun on "malaria"), suggesting Democrats are birth-parents of economic hardship and deception. The 1885 date places this after Democrat Grover Cleveland's 1884 presidential victory—the first Democratic president elected since before the Civil War. The cartoon attacks Democratic governance as inherently toxic, using disease imagery common in Gilded Age political satire. "Malarky" (dishonesty/nonsense) substitutes for the actual disease, making the metaphor: Democratic rule produces lying and economic suffering. The swamp setting reinforces corruption imagery. Judge magazine, Republican-leaning, used such visceral attacks against political opponents.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
E i NY Woon ENTERED AT TRE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK AS SECOND CLASS MATTER. COPYRIGHT 188! BY THE JUDGE PUBLISHING CO Price NEW YORK, JANUARY 3, 1885. 10 Cents. A MALARIAL PRODUCTION. BIRTH OF A DEMOCRATIC YEAR. comicbooks.com