Judge, 1898-01-15 · page 9 of 16
Judge — January 15, 1898 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page adapts the nursery rhyme "The House That Jack Built" as political satire. The illustrated narrative chain—dog, cat, rat, malt, house—appears to reference a contemporary political figure named **Platt** (likely Thomas C. Platt, prominent New York Republican politician of the late 1800s). The satire works by substituting political actors into the cumulative nursery rhyme structure. The bottom panel shows a man and woman (likely representing political figures or concepts) kneeling before a central authority figure with arms outstretched—suggesting Platt as a controlling political power who orchestrates various political machinations and consequences. The repetitive text emphasizes how each political action triggers cascading effects, mocking the interconnected web of political influence and blame-shifting. The grotesque caricatures are typical of Judge magazine's style when attacking political opponents.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
alt that lay in the 2 This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the Jack built. malt that lay in the house that Jack built. man, all tattered and torn, that 0, all forlorn, that milked the cow And this is Platt, all whiskered and worn, that married the man, all tattered and torn, to the maiden, all \d horn that tossed the dog that forlorn, that milked the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the at killed the rat that ate the malt rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. that Jack built, Sackett Wihelms Lito & Pg. Co New York ;E THAT JACK BUILT. comicbooks.com