Judge, 1913-09-13 · page 13 of 24
Judge — September 13, 1913 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This appears to be a humorous rural American anecdote rather than a political cartoon. The illustration shows sailors aboard a ship with a child (the "mascot"), though the text focuses on a different story. The accompanying narrative, told in dialect by "old Ab Tansy," satirizes compulsive gambling among working-class men. "Joe Higgins" exemplifies a "plunger"—someone unable to resist betting at a county fair, wasting money repeatedly on games of chance (drawings, spinning wheels, ball throws, ring tosses, and knife trades). The satire critiques not politicians but human weakness: once the "fever" of gambling takes hold, the victim cannot stop, spiraling through increasingly poor decisions. The rural setting and vernacular suggest this was meant to amuse middle-class Judge readers with a cautionary tale about lower-class susceptibility to vice and poor judgment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Plunger “Yes, sir, boys, if Joe Higgins ain’t gittin’ to be a regilar plunger I can’t say it!"’ said old Ab Tansy to the crowd assembled on the station platform to en- joy the excitement and exhiliration of seeing the train come in, an event of consequence that occurred twice a day in Hempville. “Yes, sir,’’ continued Ab, “if Joe don’t stop his plunging’ he'll soon need 4 gardeen to look after him. Went over tothe county fair in Pillsburg yistiday an’ paid fifteen cents apiece for three THE SHIP*’S MASCOT chances in a drawin’ for a watch an’ never drawed it. Then he paid a quarter for a chance to turn a kind of a hand pointin’ to figgers on a board an’ you don’t git nothin’ onless a kind of a finger on the hand stops on a certain figger an’ it didn’t stop on no figger when Joe turned it an’ he wasoutaquarter. Then, as if that wa’n’t enough to learn him wisdom, what does he do but pay fifteen cents for a chance to throw two or three balls at a nigger with his head stuck through a hole in a curtain an’ he never come nowhere near hittin’ the niggér so he never got no prize for that fifteen cents, By this time he’d got the plung- in’ fever so bad he couldn't stop an’ he puts up a dime for a chance to throw a ring over some knives stuck in a board an’ he lost that dime. Then he took to speckillatin’ in other ways un- til he’d lost sixty cents more an’ on the way home he traded knives sight unseen with a feller he met on the road an’ he got an old one-blader not wuth more’n a quarter for his good two-blader he'd paid fifty cents for. I tell you, boys, this plungin’ is dang’rous bizness. You git the fever once an’ you never know where to stop!"” . —M.M. comicbooks.com