Judge, 1900-12-22 · page 12 of 48
Judge — December 22, 1900 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several Christmas-themed satirical pieces targeting domestic and social hypocrisy: **"Tommy Cat"** shows Santa ignoring a child for a cat—mocking the sentimental Christmas myth. **"Willie's Joke"** and **"Costly Experiment"** poke fun at gift-giving economics: Willie receives cheap skates he wanted, while Crabshaw's wife's homemade smoking jacket (marketed as heartfelt) actually costs him money—satirizing the gap between gift-giving sentiment and actual expense. **"Christmas Growls"** are cynical observations: people celebrate Christmas cheer while kicking cats; women gift what they want, men gift what women inexplicably desire. **"What They Were There For"** mocks Sunday school morality. The superintendent preaches living for the present, but the boy admits children only behave well now to earn the Christmas tree next month—exposing that childhood virtue is purely transactional, not genuine. The overall message: Christmas sentiment masks selfishness, expense, and manipulation in American family life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Uf a, UYU TK “ous-pinns -& Tommy Cat—‘* Ob, Mr, Santa Claus, it’s really very good of you not to forget me." BY THESE PRESENTS. Something about his ap- pearance, as he plodded toward the ferry, late in the afternoon before Christmas, stamped him as a suburban resident, and the father of a family. ‘ WILLIE’S JOKE. ] GOT pair o' stippers, And oh, I'm tickled so ! Lzzactly what I wanted— A pair o' skates. you know. A COSTLY EXPERI- MENT. Crawford — “Instead of buying you a Christmas present, why don’t you have your wife make you something with her own hands ?” Crabshaw—" Can't af- ford it. She once made me a one-dollar-forty-nine-cent smoking-jacket, and the materials she bought cost me the least part of a ten- spot.” THE light laugh is the heaviest. ule “ail Qus-Dinns - gd LITTLE WILLIE ANT’S WINTER DREAM. CHRISTMAS GROWLS. Cheer seems to rhyme with beer; but it is a delusion, It is so lovely to hear a man say Merry Christmas, and then see him kick the cat. A woman chooses a gift because it is something she herself would like to have* a man because he cannot understand for the life of him why anyone wants such a thing. WHAT THEY WERE THERE FOR, SUNDAY-SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT—"' Now, children, we should not live for the past. Oh, no, we should all live, think and act for the present ™ Bov—"' Yessir! We're all thinkin’ uv de Christmas-tree next month an’ actin’ good fer de present !” comicbooks.com