Judge, 1898-12-31 · page 16 of 17
Judge — December 31, 1898 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces from Judge (copyright 1888): **"A Hereditary Tendency"** (top): A racist cartoon depicting Black characters, with dialect stereotyping. The "joke" relies on period-typical caricature suggesting inherent behavioral traits—a harmful stereotype common in 19th-century American humor. **"A Poetic Set-Back"** (middle): A visual twist on the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence." Instead of birds emerging from the pie as expected, a cat arrives first, subverting the traditional ending. The humor comes from this unexpected reversal and the wordplay on "the laugh was on the king." **"His Merry Christmas"** (right): A sentimental illustration showing a poor boy dreaming of Christmas abundance—appearing to reference themes of childhood innocence and economic hardship. The caption suggests this vision is fleeting ("just a minute"). The page exemplifies Judge's mix of crude stereotyping, wordplay-based humor, and sentimentality typical of 1880s American satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A HEREDITARY TENDENCY. Here, ‘Rastus! how offin mus’ I tell yo’ ter leabe dat little chickin on der Chris'’mus-tree alone?” * Why coan't yo’ leabe Aim alone? He cain’t help reachin’ fer dat chickin no maah dan yo’ could help reachin’ fer it if it was hangin’ on anodder kind ob a tree. . a A POETIC SET-BACK. Sing a song 0° sixpence, A pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie. When the pie was opened . The birds, they didn’t sing ; HIS MERRY .CHRISTMAS. The cat got there first, you see, It i ream Gist, ; was a beautiful vision Jaggsy had for just a minute, d ‘And the laugh was on the king. of his childhood days, and pote Hoem the Christmas eres as of ae CHRIS AND ENDS. Sacher Attain Lite BP Ga Rew ork. COPYRIONT I8BB BY ARKELL PUBLISHING COMPAKY OF EW YORK \ \ comicbooks.com