Judge — January 25, 1890 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page from *Judge* satirizes American working-class life, specifically targeting grocery prices and immigrant communities. The main cartoon, "Why Our Grocery Bills Increase," depicts an Irish immigrant woman (indicated by the phonetic dialect "Biddy," "Oi'll," "thim") haggling with a grocer over prices. The satire suggests that grocery inflation results from customers' unreasonable demands and complaints rather than actual market forces or merchant greed. "Our American Queens" appears to be a series mocking women of various social classes—likely contrasting idealized "queens" with reality. The Irish immigrant woman serves as a comedic "queen" figure, using stereotypical dialect humor common in late 19th/early 20th-century satire. The cartoons mock both consumer behavior and immigrant working-class culture simultaneously.