Judge — May 2, 1885 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Judge Magazine, May 2, 1885 The main cartoon depicts a domestic scene with caricatured figures and a grotesquely tilted house. A man appears to be restraining a woman while pointing at a dog, with a child visible on the right. The caption reads: "Pat—'Arrah, Norah! be the looks av that, if we'd had the hoodie for the Inspicktor, the shanty begad wud have been safe widout the shticks to it.'" The exaggerated Irish dialect and caricatures suggest this is an ethnic joke typical of 1880s American humor. The tilted, ramshackle house labeled with signs appears to represent poor Irish-American housing conditions. The reference to an "Inspector" and makeshift structural supports suggests commentary on tenement housing standards or building code enforcement. The "hoodie" (likely "hoodoo," meaning bad luck or curse) implies blaming supernatural forces rather than acknowledging structural inadequacy—satirizing Irish immigrants' attitudes toward poverty and housing.