The Wasp, 1918 · page 12 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains serialized fiction rather than political cartoons. The narrative describes a convict transportation scene, likely set in 19th-century Britain. The story depicts the arrest of John Trimmer (son of a tailor from Wantage) and his transfer via the ship *Good Cheer* to colonial plantations, presumably Australia or the Caribbean. A character named James Burnham witnesses the scene and later returns home in despair. The passage's bitter tone—describing the prisoners as "damned shapes and stricken souls"—and the ship's conditions (foul bilge-water, ballast hold) suggest social critique of the convict transportation system. However, without additional context about *The Wasp*'s editorial stance or publication date, the specific satirical purpose remains unclear. The text appears to be serialized dramatic fiction highlighting harsh colonial-era penal practices.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WASP 3 cession. It was a thin face, but still a square one—the face of John Trimmer, the son of the tailor of Wantage. The black and tortured eyes of the jailbird met the pale-grey eyes oH the gentleman in the doorway. ‘““A merry voyage to you, John!” cried Burnham, with a wave of the hand. “And the same merry voyage to you, Master James Burnham!” the malefactor cried back. The procession passed on amid groans, curses, jeers, and the clank of iron. At Billingsgate these children of despair, these damned shapes’ ~ and stricken souls, were put into barges and ferried out to the waiting brig. They were lowered to the ballast in the brig’s hold, in the stench of the foul bilge-water. An hour later the Good Cheer—with all the elements of hell, save fire, in her hold—went down the river with the ebb tide. James Burnham returned to his lodgings in Swan Alley, St. Paul’s Churchyard, in a black ‘mood. That ghastly procession of thieves, ’ housebreakers, masterless men, and footpads — __on their way to the plantations in the islands, and John Trimmer’s face in the midst of it, — comichbooks.com