Judge — May 5, 1923 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes **spiritualism and séances**—late 19th/early 20th-century phenomena where people claimed to contact the dead through mediums. The bearded man (likely representing a gullible believer or wealthy mark) peers upward at "spirit photographs"—floating winged objects labeled with financial concepts: "Vacations for Fools," "The Mortgage," "Last Expense," and a money bag with dollar sign. The joke mocks how spiritualist mediums exploited clients by claiming to capture images of deceased relatives, while the cartoonist suggests the real "spirits" appearing are actually the client's financial burdens and debts—far more tangible than any ghostly apparition. It's commentary on both spiritualist fraud and human gullibility during an era of widespread belief in occult phenomena.