Judge — January 14, 1893 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page satirizes the late 19th-century bicycle craze's impact on urban life. The cartoons depict bicycles replacing traditional transportation: police officers on bicycles (comparing Chicago and New York departments), street-cars converted to bicycle-powered vehicles, and horse-drawn carriages abandoned. The central joke appears to be the absurdity of bicycles becoming the dominant urban transport—showing exaggerated conversions like a motorized streetcar fitted with bicycle wheels and a bicycle-powered taxi. The bottom panel suggests traditional horse-drawn transport ("my occupation is gone") will be obsolete. The satire captures contemporary anxiety about rapid technological change, as the bicycle was genuinely transforming city streets in the 1890s. The artist humorously extrapolates this trend to its logical extreme, suggesting bicycles would eventually replace all other vehicles—a playful commentary on how thoroughly this "craze" was reshaping urban America.