The Wasp — 1895 — page 365: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page is primarily **advertisements** with one cartoon at the top titled "A Delicate Compliment to Her Feet." The cartoon depicts three people at a beach. A man in swimming attire (labeled as representing J.J. Pfister's Knitting Co.) stands between two women in bathing costumes with bicycles. The accompanying dialogue jokes about the danger of wading at low tide, with a pun about "high tide" as a flirtation. The humor appears to reference the **late 19th-century "New Woman"** — women gaining independence through bicycling and public beach attendance. The cartoon gently mocks courtship customs and women's expanding social freedoms during this period. The remainder of the page features San Francisco business advertisements for carriages, shoes, hotels, champagne, and rye whiskey.