Judge — October 31, 1885 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This appears to be a political allegory depicting industrialization as a destructive force. A large mechanical contraption—labeled with references to "monopoly," "Nebraska," and "industry"—operates like a grinding machine crushing people beneath it. The figure operating it wears a top hat marked "monopoly," suggesting wealthy industrialists or monopolists controlling the machinery. In the background, settlers or common people react with alarm, some with raised hands. The title "The Scourge" indicates Judge magazine is critiquing industrial monopolies as harmful to ordinary citizens and settlers, particularly in western territories like Nebraska. This likely reflects late 19th or early 20th-century anxieties about unchecked corporate power crushing labor and frontier communities.