The Wasp — 1895 — page 263: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon depicts a social interaction between two women, titled "A Little Miscalculation." The sketch shows a maid or servant addressing a mistress, with the caption indicating a humorous misunderstanding about the maid's duties or circumstances. The joke appears to turn on the maid's unexpected response when asked about her situation. The mistress assumes the maid is in a particular circumstance, but the maid corrects her—likely revealing she only has "one" of something the mistress expected her to lack (possibly referencing an illegitimate child, a common satirical subject of the era). The satire targets class dynamics and assumptions about working-class women's morality and situations, playing on Victorian-era stereotypes and the mistress's miscalculation of her servant's actual circumstances.