Judge — August 13, 1921 — page 18: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This 1890s-era Judge cartoon depicts a racial stereotype scene with three figures in lower-class dress encountering a well-dressed man in a pinstriped suit and hat. The caption warns one character to hide a bottle because the stranger might be a plainclothes police officer. The satire targets Prohibition-era enforcement and working-class evasion of alcohol laws. The caricatured figures appear to represent Irish or immigrant laborers—common subjects of Judge's often crude humor. The joke relies on depicting poor communities as lawbreakers habitually concealing illegal liquor from undercover law enforcement. The cartoon reflects both Gilded Age class attitudes and the social tensions around Prohibition, though its racial characterizations are offensive by modern standards.