Judge, 1898-01-15 · page 8 of 16
Judge — January 15, 1898 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page adapts the classic nursery rhyme "The House That Jack Built" into political satire. Victor Gillam illustrates each cumulative verse with increasingly chaotic scenes showing New York's urban problems and corruption. The cartoon criticizes urban corruption and social decay through the familiar rhyme structure. Each illustration—from the building (representing City Hall or municipal government) through moneybags, rats, cows, and various urban characters—represents layers of institutional corruption and mismanagement that compound each other. The "maiden, all forlorn" and "man" depicted appear to represent common citizens victimized by this corrupt system. The title suggests this is satirizing modern municipal governance, likely from the Gilded Age when urban political machines were notorious for graft and inefficiency. The satire's point: like the nursery rhyme's chain reaction, urban corruption interconnects—one problem causes another in an endless, worsening cycle.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
This is the house that Jack built. ‘This is the malt that lay in the house that This is the rat that ate the malt that lay i Jack bail, house that Jack built. This is the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack This is the maiden, all forlorn, that milked the This Is the man, all tats balk. ‘cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that ecu ths nica, al fetern: Vi worried the oat that killed the rat that ate the malt wortied the cat that billed the’ WeToR GL Leng that lay inthe house that Jack built that lay fn the hoo that Joc COmMmONTI89® BY THE JUOGE PUBLISHING COMPANY OF REW YORK THE MODERN HOUSE TH. comicbooks.com