Puck, 1879-01-22 · page 5 of 16
Puck — January 22, 1879 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Puck cartoon satirizes **Mr. S. Schwitzenberger**, a man dealing with winter's hardships in what appears to be a German-American community (suggested by the German name and "Ober Niedersdorf" reference). The humor follows Schwitzenberger's escalating misfortunes: his key freezes in the lock, he searches desperately for it, then retrieves it from an icy water butt. The climax shows him permanently frozen to his location by morning, finding himself "bald-headed" due to his hair freezing. The final panel reveals darker irony: Mrs. Schwitzenberger, discovering his frozen predicament at dawn, apparently decides to replace him rather than rescue him—she's found his "woe" too costly. The satire mocks both winter's brutality and domestic indifference with darkly comedic exaggeration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
PUCK. A TALE OF WOE AND WINTER. i i The key takes a tumble. (cal He feels{for his key where he usually Keyhole frozen up. (Frozen up on other side of door. Schwitzenheimer nota Murphy man, Not advisable to look for a keyhole in the place where it isn't.) Mr. Schwitzenheimer is going home. Midnight. Eight degrees below zero. keeps it. “Schwitzenheimer’s patent, Schwitzenheimer goes for that key, taking care that his head, at least, shall not impinge upon the glassy sur- face of the water-butt. Schwitzenheimer is bald-headed, which is the only Schwitzenheimer reaches for it and gets his hat in the reason why his hair doesn’t freeze when he puts his baton. water-butt. Good hat, It breaks the ice and strikes clear water. Ne feels it still more when, at five o'clock in the Schwitzenheimer is—-toas—a man who liked to keep morning, he finds himself permanently located. But he up the customs of the Fatherland. He and his wife has the key. were served every morning with ass’s milk—one pint—as was his wont in Ober Nicderdorff. But when Mrs. Schwitzenheimer comes out in the early dawning, ber eagle eye takes in the situation at a glance, and she or- ders the maid with the milking-pail to serve but one half pint hereafter. The result is victory. But Schwitzenheimer feels that such a victory costs too dear. comicbooks.com