Judge — July 23, 1904 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

**Top cartoon ("Paradoxical, But Pertinent"):** A blind street musician and a deaf man both seek charity from Mrs. Goode. The joke's dark humor: the blind organist argues *he* deserves charity most because the deaf man's "misfortune" of not hearing his terrible organ music is actually a blessing. This satirizes both professional begging and the presumed awfulness of street musicians. **Bottom cartoon ("Weighty Reasoning"):** A mother watches her daughter practice piano scales, making a pun-based joke: she's concerned that if the girl puts more "pounds" (weight) on the piano keys while practicing scales (musical exercises), she'll exceed the piano's weight capacity. The humor relies on conflating musical "pounds" of pressure with literal body weight, mocking the girl's presumed heaviness. Both cartoons use physical disability/appearance and crude stereotypes (Irish dialect "Phwat," "Ol") typical of early 1900s American humor.