The Wasp, 1918 · page 79 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 79: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is prose fiction rather than a political cartoon. It depicts a dramatic confrontation scene involving Elizabeth Nash, a young woman who whips a New England shipmaster named Smith after he attempts to restrain her. Her father and a man named Burnham intervene—Burnham violently subduing Smith while the governor's servants arrive to prevent further violence. Without additional context about *The Wasp* magazine's date or the story's broader narrative, the specific political or social satire remains unclear. However, the scene's emphasis on a Southern belle's fierce resistance to a Northern shipmaster, combined with references to a governor and servants, suggests this may be satirizing regional tensions (North vs. South) or class conflicts common to 19th-century American literature. The romantic or dramatic tone suggests this could be satirizing popular melodramatic fiction of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
oo 3 THE 4s _ from the painted spell. Harden yer heart’ against the wiles 0’ the smirkin’ she-devil!” Elizabeth Nash straightened her slender, rounded form and dropped her arm from her ~ father’s neck. She still held the gold-headed whip in her right hand. Her face was like a red rose of the south and her eyes like two points of blue fire in the heart of an iceberg. — For half a second she stood thus, straight and | trembling; and then she darted forward and — ; lashed the New England shipmaster fair across— the face with her whip twice, quick as lightning, -with all the strength of her youth and fury. Smith writhed, screamed an oath, then threw his arms around her. He tried to throw her, his face colourless as chalk save for the two livid . . | welts across it. 7 While she swayed in his grasp, and before hee father could raise his voice or a pistol, Burnham =~ leaped upon them, seized the shipmaster’sthroat ~~ with his right hand, and carried them both to the ground. Be He clung to the man’s chrese The girl rolled clear, scrambled to her feet, and. darted back to her father. = | The governor and his servants bestirred them- ~ ” selves just in the nick of time to save Burnham 5 Eommic books icom