Judge — March 16, 1918 — page 38: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon by Orson Lowell satirizes class-conscious social hypocrisy. A well-dressed couple learns that their neighbors, the "impossible Riggsby people" (whom they've been tolerating out of propriety), are actually their relatives. The husband's relief—that they can now stop "being decent" to them—exposes how upper-class civility is conditional and performative. The couple maintained politeness only because social obligation required it, not from genuine regard. Once familial connection is established, they feel entitled to drop the pretense. The joke mocks the arbitrary nature of social courtesy among the wealthy, suggesting that family bonds somehow justify abandoning the very decency they grudgingly extended to non-relatives. It's commentary on class snobbery and the hollow nature of forced social cordiality.