Judge — September 8, 1900 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains two satirical cartoons using racial caricatures typical of early 1900s American humor: **"The Way He Settled the Bill"** depicts a Justice of the Peace and a groom with exaggerated features. The groom proposes paying his two-dollar marriage fee through domestic labor—sending his wife to do two weeks of washing for the judge. The joke satirizes both the groom's poverty and the casual assumption that women's unpaid household work could substitute for cash payment. **"A Dream in Style"** mocks a new pastor's fashion sense through dialogue between two women. The satire suggests the pastor dresses with such refined taste that he resembles a jockey or prize-fighter—occupations considered crude or low-class. The joke plays on the incongruity between clerical dignity and these unlikely comparisons. Both cartoons employ dehumanizing racial imagery standard to the era's "Judge" magazine, reflecting deeply problematic artistic conventions of the period.