Judge, 1904-11-05 · page 3 of 16
Judge — November 5, 1904 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This comic strip satirizes early 20th-century anxieties about anarchist bomb plots. "Nervy Nat," a shady character with a suitcase, encounters various suspicious situations while traveling through the city. The humor relies on period fears: a suspicious suitcase is repeatedly mistaken for an anarchist's "infernal machine" (bomb). Each panel escalates the comedy—from a friend's curiosity, to police involvement, to military concern. The final panels show authority figures (police, military) increasingly panicked about the innocent luggage. The satire mocks both anarchist hysteria gripping America and the overreaction of officials to perceived threats. The "foreigner" appearance of Nat plays into contemporary xenophobic anxieties about immigrants and political violence.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1% Suspicious-Looxinc paco—"* Kinda friend, willa you keepa da handa- bag fora me—twenta min’—das all—be back on twenta min'—yes ?”” Nervy Nat—" Certainly, my dear Latin friends It would ill become an old New Yorker like myself to refuse so slight‘a favor to a stranger within the gates. Nervy Nat is, above all else, a gentleman.” 2. Nexvy Nat—"'That dago, 1 am pained to observe, is a tergiversa- tor, My watch Is having its appendix taken out at Tiffany's, but | am sure it {3 two hours since that delightfully foreign person with the merry- go-round rings in his ears left that vulgar portmanteau in my care! I'm altogether too cushion-hearted. | am always being imposed upon—like most people with an enlargement of the disposition, 3. Nervy Nat—" By the sword Excalibar! what's inside of this thing? A clicking, as 1 breathe! That son of spaghetti belongs to the Black hand club, and this must be an infernal machine. | wonder what time the balloon goes up? I'll not be a churl. I'll take it to police headquar- ters, where it will do the most good if It should go off, My word! and here I've been standing for two hours making goo-goo eyes at death!"* t | ys <, g z nf iti or g 17 te | (ua a | 4 Nervy Nat—"‘A race with death, I can hear the awful clicking louder and louder. I never was in a hurry to get to the police-station be- fore, If this thing does go off I'll get no return-ticket from the place I'll go tol The sergeant ought to give me a rebate on my next week's incarcer- ation for exposing this hideous plot. And to think we Americans allow this foreign scum to land!" 5. ‘Serceant—* By gorra, Nat! {s that yer infernal machine that you’d be afther scarin’ th’ hull perleece force wid?" Nervy Nat—" Words cannot express my mortification, my dear Raf- ferty. The English language is inadequate to convey the least part of my chagrin to you. Will you kindly see that the court is cleared of ladies, my dear sergeant, as | am about to say a few things no sensitive and refined person should hear ?""—— Sexceant— The tron door fer you, Nat, fer this monkey business!"" Nervy Nat—'‘ Good-night, boys; call meateight-thirty. But let me beseech you to keep away from this suite of rooms, for, as hardened as you are to profanity, you would be horribly shocked at the sensational curses and pyrotechnical profanities that 1 can feel surging in my breast and struggling for expression. Go—go, boys, before | commence!” NO. 47.—NERVY NAT AND THE INFERNAL MACHINE. comicbooks.com