The Wasp — 1896 — page 767: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page is primarily **advertising** with one cartoon illustration. The main image shows a woman in Victorian dress looking distressed, titled "WAS NOT NATURAL" with accompanying text "A MOTHER'S ANXIETY." The narrative beneath describes a mother worried about her child's hat while the father reads, with logicians debating narrow vs. broad gauge trains—an absurdist non-sequitur suggesting the father's abstract reasoning ignores practical domestic concerns. The satire appears to mock male intellectualism and detachment from family worries. The "unnatural" element likely refers to the father's indifference to his wife's legitimate maternal anxiety, contrasting intellectual argumentation with real household needs. The page otherwise contains numerous San Francisco business advertisements for banks, insurance, shipping companies, and manufacturers—typical of late 19th/early 20th-century periodicals.