Judge, 1924-01-12 · page 10 of 36
Judge — January 12, 1924 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "In Merrie England" - Cartoon Analysis This is a single-panel joke cartoon satirizing British upper-class society and marriage dynamics. The setup involves Lady Peggy Blitheringwell visiting Lord and Lady Toshington's country estate, where she asks Bertie (likely a young aristocratic visitor) about a woman she saw him with in London. The punchline hinges on a class-based insult: Bertie's wife is so unfashionable, dowdy, or generally unimpressive that Lady Peggy didn't recognize her as a "stunning little creature"—she assumed she was someone of lower social standing. Bertie's deadpan response ("That was the missus!") delivers the joke's sting. The satire mocks shallow aristocratic values, snobbery about appearances, and the disconnect between romantic idealization and marital reality among the leisure class. The exaggerated social dialect ("old thing," "I say") emphasizes the affected pretentiousness being ridiculed.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IN MERRIE ENGLAND Lady Peggy Blitheringwell (who has run down to spend a week-end with Lord and Lady Toshington)—I say, Bertie, old thing, who was that stunning little creature I saw you with on the Strand yesterday? Bertie (who is a bit fed up with Shrop- shire in Devon and has just made up his mind to run up to London and all that sort of tosh)—But I say, Peggy, old thing, that wasn’t a stunning little creature. That was the missus! comicbooks.com