Judge, 1900-11-03 · page 5 of 14
Judge — November 3, 1900 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a social satire about courtship and money. Two men—Fenpy and Algy—discuss why a young woman's father objects to their engagement. The father is wealthy ("has a barrel of money") but wants to protect his fortune from a suitor he suspects is a fortune-hunter. Fenpy's witty response—that the father imagines he wants to "take the staves off the barrel"—is a double entendre: it suggests both literally dismantling the barrel and metaphorically extracting/stealing the money inside. The illustration shows a fashionable woman's face in profile with an elaborate hairstyle, positioned above a decorative vase with flowers—visually supporting the "barrel" metaphor. The satire targets both greedy suitors and wealthy fathers' anxieties about protecting their assets from gold-diggers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WHY HE OBJECTED. Fenpy—" Her dad is tring to stave off the e engagement.” ALGY—"* He has a barrel of money, I suppose?” Feroy—" Ves; and imagines I want to take the staves off the barrel.” comicbooks.com’