Judge — October 29, 1904 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a six-panel comic strip titled "How Hambone Filled the Tick," depicting a character named Hambone dealing with a mattress ("tick" being period slang for mattress ticking/cover). The sequence shows Hambone attempting to stuff a hair-mattress, with captions using heavy dialect ("Fo'" for "for," "dis" for "this"). Panel 1 references "hair-mattress widout any hair," suggesting the mattress is empty. The subsequent panels show Hambone's humorous attempts to fill it, with the final panel showing him peacefully sleeping on the completed mattress. The strip employs racial caricature stereotyping common to early 20th-century American humor magazines. The dialect and character name reflect the period's offensive depictions. The humor derives from slapstick physical comedy and working-class domestic struggles with household goods.