Judge — July 14, 1923 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Explanation for Modern Readers This Judge magazine page contains two separate cartoons satirizing early automobile culture. The top panel, "Charley's Ant—No. 2," shows slapstick humor involving adults being chased or tormented by a small child (depicted with spiky hair), playing on the chaos of childcare. The bottom cartoon mocks motorists of the era. It depicts a fed-up driver unable to control his car, heading toward a river. A passenger ironically cheers "Hurrah! Steer for the river!"—joking that crashing into the water would be preferable to the car's unreliability. This reflects early automobiles' notorious mechanical problems and poor handling. The satire targets both the vehicles' dangerous inadequacy and drivers' frustration with newfangled technology, presenting deliberate crash-into-a-river as a darkly humorous "solution" to mechanical failure.