Judge — August 17, 1901 — page 2: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "A More Strenuous Conversion" This cartoon depicts a rural conversion scene with an Elder Frothingham addressing Dame Scoldborough about a donkey's improved behavior. The caption quotes the Elder praising the donkey's reformation ("hath become well behaved—hast, in verity, been brought to the 'mood of repentance'"), while Dame Scoldborough delivers the joke's punchline: she beat the animal "at the town dockside at the river"—not through religious means, but through physical punishment. The satire mocks excessive religiosity and sanctimonious moralizing. The humor lies in the contrast between the Elder's grandiose spiritual language and the crude reality: the donkey was simply beaten into submission. It's a jab at those who dress up worldly solutions in pious language, particularly relevant to Progressive Era debates about reform methods versus actual change.