Judge — December 23, 1916 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This comic strip satirizes women's anxiety about weight and appearance. A young woman nervously enters a butcher shop (marked "Beef & Pork") to weigh herself, fearing she has gained weight—using "put on a score" as a pun (score = twenty pounds). The joke relies on the period's social expectation that women should obsessively monitor their bodies. The punchline: she's actually *lost* half a pound, which "lifted a weight from her mind"—a play on words where emotional relief matches physical weight loss. The cartoon mocks both feminine vanity and the culture pressuring women about their appearance, presenting her anxiety as somewhat ridiculous while reinforcing that weight loss equals happiness.