The Wasp — 1895 — page 84: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page is primarily **advertising and directory listings** for San Francisco businesses—hotels, restaurants, saloons, and professional services. The single illustration depicts a couple in formal evening wear (a woman in a white gown, a man in a tuxedo) engaged in conversation with the caption: "HUSBAND—I see plainly you want to get up a cotillion. Well, wait, at least, till we are inside our own house! / WIFE—Impossible! I shall have cooled down before we get there." The joke is a **domestic satire**: the wife is so eager to host a social gathering (a cotillion, a formal dance) that she cannot wait until arriving home to discuss it, instead discussing plans while still in public. It mocks upper-class wives' obsession with entertaining and social status. The humor lies in the husband's resigned acceptance of his wife's social ambitions.