Judge — December 24, 1898 — page 10: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This two-panel Christmas cartoon satirizes the relationship between a turkey and its human keeper. **Panel I** shows a caricatured man named "Wayback Jakes" commenting on a bird's size, expecting it to be ready by Christmas—the traditional holiday meal. **Panel II** reveals "the reason": the turkey, now attacking the man, explains it has been "training up" all year—implying the bird deliberately fattened itself to become a formidable opponent rather than a passive victim heading to slaughter. The joke inverts expectations: instead of accepting its fate as dinner, the turkey has weaponized itself. This anthropomorphizes the bird as clever and self-preserving, mocking human assumptions about holiday meals while playing on period humor about animals outwitting their keepers. The cartoon's satire lies in giving the turkey agency and aggressive intent against its would-be consumer.