The Wasp, 1913 · page 162 of 364
The Wasp — 1913 — page 162: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page depicts a scene from a narrative story (likely serialized fiction), not a political cartoon. A regimental surgeon examines an injured man named Stanton, revealing that he's been wounded in a *duel*—apparently with someone named Percy. The surgeon's dialogue mocks the era's changing moral standards. He complains that society now hides such "accidents" (duels) rather than accepting them openly, nostalgia for when "men were men" who settled disputes through violence without pretense. The surgeon boasts of his own three duels and having killed a man, and sarcastically notes that even clergy once fought each other. The satire targets Victorian-era hypocrisy: the contradiction between publicly condemning dueling while privately accepting it among gentlemen. The surgeon represents old-guard attitudes clashing with "nice morals" of the present day.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WASP 157 the regimental surgeon, entered the room on tip- toe, with a fat finger pressed archly on a fat lower lip. He closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. “A pretty fight, Cross tells me,” he whispered, advancing and gazing down curiously and with con- siderable relish at Stanton. “I didn’t think Percy had the pluck, and that’s a fact. Alive, stap me if he isn’t—and bleeding nicely! He'll recover, un- less the fever gets him or the blood turns and drains inward. With luck, he'll pull through; for he has the constitution of an ox. A few weeks spent in bed, on the flat of his back, will do him no harm. I'll report to the colonel that he was injured by a throw from his horse, but well I can remember the days when little accidents of this kind did not have to be hidden under a bushel. We're becoming too nice in our morals, Willis. I’ve been out myself. Bless your soul, yes—three times in all, and killed my man once. Men were men in those days, and not a pack of old ladies. I’ve seen a parson go out in the dawning with his own church warden and Comichooks.com