Judge — December 5, 1891 — page 23: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page parodies fake advertising testimonials—a common marketing practice of the era. Each illustration shows a supposedly satisfied customer endorsing a product or service, with their praise printed below. The satire works by pairing absurd or contradictory testimonials with caricatured figures. For example, one man praises crockery he saw in a store window but "couldn't get out of my head"—implying obsession rather than quality. Another testimonial credits a gun with "surprising shots," while the Safety Gun ad shows someone apparently injured. The "Acme Business College" testimonial is particularly satirical: a student claims attending only two years led to a "high position with chance of further rise"—mocking the inflated promises of diploma mills and correspondence schools popular in this period. The overall point: Judge is ridiculing how companies use fake customer endorsements to make dubious or exaggerated claims sound legitimate, a deceptive advertising tactic that clearly annoyed the magazine's editors.