The Wasp — 1914 — page 17: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page is primarily text rather than a cartoon. It's a biographical passage about James Burnham, third son of Sir Walter Burnham of Burnham, Berkshire. The passage describes Sir Walter as a harsh, temperamental man obsessed with marking his possessions with his family's heraldic device—the Burnham coat of arms. The satire appears to target Sir Walter's excessive vanity and compulsive need to display his aristocratic status by engraving his mark on everything from valuable silver plate to farmhouses and cottages. The author mocks this as an absurd "whim" elevated to a "passion," suggesting the aristocracy's pretentious self-importance. The Latin phrase "Expectans equito" (roughly "awaiting the rider") is his family motto, which further emphasizes the pompous nature of this obsessive marking behavior.