Judge — November 7, 1903 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains two separate satirical comics mocking working-class Irish immigrants during a labor strike era (likely early 1900s). **Top cartoon:** "Tired Thompson" and "Hopeless Highland" discuss strike definitions. The joke is sardonic—strikes are presented as "divine dispensation" (God's will) that *permit* workers to claim they can't find work, suggesting strikes are merely excuses rather than legitimate labor actions. The dialect reinforces ethnic stereotyping. **Bottom cartoon:** "D.D." plays on "divinity" (religious studies). A man claims "Honorah Mulligan is my divinity," but another character retorts that her mother must be "a doctor of divinity" since he saw her administering castor oil to the girl—a crude reference to maternal discipline or illness treatment, used here as crude humor. Both comics mock Irish-American workers and their speech patterns through crude humor and religious wordplay.