Puck — April 3, 1878 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This appears to be a satirical comic about urban poverty and working-class housing conditions. The left panel shows a large, overcrowded tenement building with dozens of residents visible in windows—a visual critique of dense, inadequate housing. The right panels follow a narrative involving what appears to be a poor working woman. Dialogue includes "No, miss, you can't take that in by the front door" and references to a clerk being "insulted" and "absurd." The final panel shows a woman with text reading "RECEIPT OF ST. STEWART'S WORKING-WOMAN'S HOME" and concludes "Virtue is its own reward." The satire appears to mock charitable institutions that claimed to help working women while maintaining strict, degrading rules—suggesting that virtue and respectability were demanded of the poor while society denied them basic dignity.