The Wasp — 1895 — page 784: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is primarily a title page and advertisement rather than a political cartoon. The main illustration, captioned "That Oakland Horror," depicts two fashionably dressed women at a waterfront using binoculars and a telescope to observe something across the bay. The caption suggests scandal or impropriety: "Miss Prude—'I do believe that wretched man on the balcony of the boathouse has nothing on him but a pair of red flannel drawers!'" The joke appears to mock Victorian prudishness and the obsessive surveillance of neighbors' moral conduct. The left sidebar advertises subscription premiums, including a partnership with Cosmopolitan Magazine. The satirical point seems to be ridiculing exaggerated propriety and gossip culture among San Francisco's elite.