Judge — April 30, 1887 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This political cartoon satirizes Irish landlord exploitation. The figure on the left, bloated and labeled "POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE," represents a wealthy landlord gorged on rental income from Irish tenants. The well-dressed man on the right appears to be an Irish landlord or politician, depicted as a vulture hovering over a basket of evicted tenants' possessions. The caption—"AN APPEAL TO A COUNTRY WITHOUT A SOUL ABOVE 2 s. d."—uses the abbreviation for shillings and pence to mock Irish landlords as motivated purely by profit, lacking moral conscience. The subtitle references "Non-Resident Irish Landlord," criticizing absentee landlords who extracted wealth from Ireland without reinvesting locally. This reflects 1880s Irish land reform debates and tenant suffering under exploitative rental systems.