Judge — December 18, 1897 — page 13: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a four-panel comic strip titled "A Well-Deserved Boomerang" depicting a Christmas prank gone wrong. **The Setup:** A character identified as "Naughty Chimmy" (a child with an exaggerated accent, "wid de hornets' nest") discovers an older man named Jones sleeping beneath a tree and decides to soak a hornet's nest with water and hide it nearby—a cruel practical joke. **The Payoff:** The subsequent panels show the consequences: Jones flees the bush in panic, and the enraged hornets attack Chimmy instead, who runs away being chased. **The Satire:** The title "A Well-Deserved Boomerang" references the boomerang metaphor—the prank literally comes back to harm the prankster. This appears to be a morality tale typical of 1907 children's humor in *Judge* magazine: cruel tricks backfire on those who attempt them. The crude dialect suggests the character is meant as working-class or immigrant.