Judge, 1902-03-15 · page 16 of 16
Judge — March 15, 1902 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This four-panel comic depicts a con artist exploiting a wealthy, sympathetic woman's charity. "Watteren Williams" (a caricatured Irish immigrant, indicated by dialect spelling) approaches a "Kind and Generous Lady" claiming he lost his dead mother's precious twenty-dollar gold piece down a grate. The satire works on multiple levels: it mocks both the immigrant character's transparent dishonesty and the wealthy woman's naive gullibility. When she offers only ten dollars (half the claimed loss), Williams cynically decides to tell his mother's spirit he lost only half—pocketing the profit while maintaining his sob story's plausibility. The title's irony is sharp: the lady has "helped" him not through charity but by enabling his con. The piece reflects turn-of-the-century stereotypes about Irish immigrants as unreliable and scheming, while simultaneously satirizing upper-class sentimentality and susceptibility to manipulation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
comicbooks.com 1. Watterep Wittiams—"' Oh, lady! I suffered a terrible loss. Bah-hah-ah!"’ Watteren Wittams—"'I jest lost a twenty-dollar gold-plece down dat grate dat me poor, Kino AND Generous Lapy—" What's the trouble, my poor, dear man ?"” dear mudder, w'ot is dead, left me.’ 3. 4. Kinp AND Generous Lapy—'* Poor, suffering fellow! 1 am so sorry I haven't quite enough Watteren Wittiams—" Oh, gosh, lady! me mudder will be awfully tickled when de spirits to cover your loss; but here {s all | have—one ten-dollar gold plece. It's 90 consider. tell her dat I only lost half uv de twenty.’ ate of you to hold your mother’s memory in such esteem!" COPYRGNT 1902 BY JUDGE COMPANY OF NEW YORK. SHE HELPED HIM A GREAT DEAL. Sackett & Witeins Litho B Pg (a. New York