Judge — December 10, 1898 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This two-panel comic satirizes poor judgment based on incomplete evidence. In the top panel, "Mr. Johnson" performs acrobatic contortions to escape a predicament, claiming his "acrobatic training" helps. In the bottom panel, Farmer Bigosh discovers animal tracks the next morning and misinterprets them—he assumes a large hawk stole his chickens and *walked* away because the birds were too heavy to carry. The farmer is "judging from his tracks" alone, reaching an absurd conclusion. The joke is that both Johnson and the farmer jump to wrong conclusions from limited information: Johnson exaggerates his training's usefulness, while the farmer fabricates an impossible explanation (a hawk walking) rather than considering simpler alternatives. The satire mocks human tendency toward false reasoning and overconfident interpretation of scant evidence.