“Mon Dieu! Are there any more at home like you?”
Rats are fleeing a sinking ship labeled “Frenzied Insurance” in the background. James H. “Hyde” has already made it to the shore labeled “France” where another rat, Judge “Andy Hamilton” is standing. Richard A. “McCurdy” and his son-in-law Louis A. “Thebaud” are still swimming ashore.
Comments and Context
The biggest rat in J. S. Pughe’s cover cartoon in Puck is James H. Hyde, the disgraced former board member of his family’s Equitable Life Assurance Society, caught in both financial improprieties and a scandalous, extravagant costume ball he threw. He moved to France, which would be his home for decades, when other opportunities disappeared and social embarrassments appeared.