Judge — October 10, 1903 — page 6: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This Penrhyn Stanlaws cartoon satirizes wealth and social class through a dialogue between a man and woman at what appears to be a formal social gathering. The joke hinges on differing definitions of "success": She asks "And what would you call a real success?" He responds that success is "One who leaves money enough to bury him"—a sardonic comment on the meager aspirations of the working class or poor. The implication is that merely affording one's own funeral represents achievement for ordinary people. The cartoon mocks both the wealthy woman's presumption that success means something grander, and the grim reality that for many people, basic dignity in death was a luxury. It reflects early 20th-century anxieties about economic inequality and class distinction.