Judge — December 22, 1900 — page 25: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page from *Judge* magazine presents two comic strips featuring recurring character "Deacon Elderberry and his times." **Top panel:** Shows townspeople heading to Christmas church services. The caption introduces "Brother Strongheart Wobbles," humorously suggesting he's happiest surrounded by family—"especially if there are Indians about." This likely satirizes frontier anxieties and racial prejudices of the era, using absurdist humor to mock both paranoia about Native Americans and masculine posturing. **Bottom panel:** Depicts the deacon's nephew Ethelbert with a squirrel trap in snowy woods. The joke is that he's become trapped himself, explaining his absence from lunch. The visual gag relies on simple slapstick irony—the trap-maker caught by circumstance. Both strips use gentle, folksy humor typical of early-20th-century American comic strips, with recurring characters allowing readers to follow ongoing narratives about small-town life.