Judge, 1891-05-09 · page 14 of 20
Judge — May 9, 1891 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes late 19th/early 20th-century American immigration anxieties through two distinct pieces: **"Report on Immigration"** mocks nativist fears by listing immigrants in grotesque, dehumanizing terms—describing arrivals as diseased, criminal, and ethnically "undesirable" (Arabs, Turks, Italians, Polish Jews, "Lascars," etc.). The poem's deliberately crude language and violent imagery ("thug and thief," "social scab") exaggerates anti-immigrant rhetoric to absurd levels, clearly intending to ridicule such prejudices rather than endorse them. **"An Optimist in Rags"** shows a homeless Irish immigrant humorously complaining about cold weather while surrounded by hay—a gentler jab suggesting that even impoverished immigrants maintain resilient humor. The bottom section, "Exercise as a Health-Promoter," shifts tone entirely with domestic humor about exercise curing insomnia, unrelated to immigration. The page criticizes xenophobic attitudes by presenting them as laughably extreme, while acknowledging the real hardships facing immigrants of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE REPORT QN IMMIGRATION. Q'E BRING them in from distant points with leprosy and opium - joints, with A bludgeons and with dagger-points, these tatterdemalions; the Arab, Turk and Hottentot, pink -eyed albinos, Lord- knows-what, with language wondrous polyglot, Hungarians and Italians. Take them as they come in loads, warty, swollen, humped like toads ; string them out along the roads; take the lot and lump ‘em ; sprinkle in some Polish Jews, some socialists of rabid views, some Las- cars in the mass diffuse, then bring them in and dump ‘em. Get some pirates, Algerines, some Malays, thugs of moderate means, Cape ‘Colo- nists and Argentines, and convicts from the galleys ; workhouse warts and life- long tramps, blotched and bleached with prison damps, hereditary thieves and scamps, to grace our hills and valleys. Stir the mixture thick and slab—thug and thief and hedge-side drab, human wen and social scab, they will make a nation; make a cess-pool f débris may be hurled, with this motto wide unfurled AN OPTIMIST IN RAGS. the world where earth's Tis 1s IsuicraTion.” had wan av thim deadly ca loves around.” FFLUS (nestling under the straw in Squire Oat- re, it’s mighty cowld here. I wouldn't mind if we Tf you want to cure yourself of sleeplessness, just throw away your dumb-bells and Tadian clubs and perform your wife's daily exercises. S.—When sending in testimonials please mention this paper. MONORABLR JRRMS PIKES, Chairman commission on immigration. Curerret Cures thot cowld thot yez wants to be barbecued?” EXERCISE AS A HEALTH-PROMOTER. ‘OUR ADVICE. all the tons of hay here? Are yez comicbooks.com i]