Judge, 1892-12-24 · page 5 of 18
Judge — December 24, 1892 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes Christmas gift-giving excess and its financial consequences. The main poem, "The Consequence," follows a spendthrift narrator who lavishly purchased gifts for everyone but exhausted his savings—leaving only sixty-seven cents. The humor lies in the ironic reversal: he received an "overwhelming avalanche" of gifts in return, yet cannot afford food or clothing, instead possessing useless luxuries like cologne bottles and ornamental scarves. The lower comic strip, "How Weary Walker Got More Than He Wanted," depicts a poor man named Walker receiving unexpected confrontations from multiple people (including "Rastus" and "Jim the Cracker," using period racial stereotypes common to Judge). The implication appears to be that his generosity—or assumed generosity—created social complications he didn't anticipate. The satire targets the compulsory nature of holiday spending and its social entanglements.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE THE CONSEQUENCE. HAVE done my Christmas shopping. Far and - wide and high and low I have traveled, making purchases for every- one I know. T have scrupulously striven to be bounteous ; have given proofs of my regard un- stintingly, nor heeded the expense. T have scattered my remembrances with lavish hand and free, ‘And my purse is gauntly shrunken, with such stern persistency Have I made my presentations to my numerous relations and acquaintances. All I have left is sixty-seven cents, T have reaped my due reward, I have a very large supply— ‘An oyerwhelming avalanche—of Christmas gifts; and I Have expressed my thankful pleasure in exuberant full measure ; yea, and I have written grateful notes and bland acknowledgments, ‘And I have said in each, with an untruthfulness depraved, That the article in question was the thing I most have craved— With my breath jn scared suspension from the dismal apprehensjon which possesses me; for I have only sixty-seven cents. Shall I find me food and raiment in a walking-stick bamboo Or a silver-mounted ink-stand ; in a smoking-jacket blue With a yellow satin facing; or a red plush box embracing comb and brush and hand- glass ; or a pair of mantel ornaments? Shall I look for sustenance to a large bottle of cologne? Shall a fancy scarf-pin stay me? Nay, my troubled soul makes moan, This the dark and woeful reason that the joyous Christmas season leaves me grim, despair- ing—my assets are sixty-seven cents. Fanaa Hayrick—"' B’gosh ! I worn these old clo'es fer ten year; now they'll jes’ do fer the scare- —Take that, you old skinflint !" Misstonary—'‘Are you a Christian?” *Rastus—"* Does I look like a Jew Jim THE CRACKER—"' Here comes old Hayrick. I'll settle our old feud onct fer all.— 'mm—** ‘Scuse me, sah; I made a mistake, sah.” EARY WALKER—"* Don't mention it.” HOW WEARY WALKER GOT MORE THAN HE WANTED. comicbooks.com