Judge, 1902-12-27 · page 8 of 17
Judge — December 27, 1902 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This appears to be a **satirical narrative comic** from Judge magazine, not a political cartoon. It depicts a domestic drama featuring a character named Dave Hill who quarrels with his "lady friend" over a failed romance, storms out penniless into the rain, then returns to the house—apparently drawn back by thoughts of pork chops. The humor relies on **class-based and ethnic caricature**: the exaggerated facial features and dialect ("Ain't dat a shame") employ racist caricaturing common in early 20th-century American humor magazines. The joke's premise—a poor man's romantic pretensions undercut by his hunger for cheap food—plays on stereotypes about working-class or immigrant characters prioritizing basic sustenance over dignity or love. The satire targets romantic ideals versus material survival, though filtered through the dehumanizing visual and verbal conventions of its era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“AIN’T DAT A SH One dark and stormy night—the rain was falling fast— Dave Hill told his lady friend, -* Our dream of love is pa He said no more, just slammed the door. He wandered around the town, but he didn’t have a cent; He thought about his pork-chops, then back to the house he went. I stand here freezingwet tc Oh, listen to his mournful cry: Cubacs. Ain't dat a shame-/? mea: To keep your honcf out ii Will you open dat foor ar comicbooks.com re