The Wasp — 1889 — page 414: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains **short comedic sketches and one-liners** rather than political cartoons. The humor targets various social types and contemporary absurdities: - **"Trifles Light as Air"** mocks pretentious excuses and obliviousness (a woman ignoring obvious facts) - **Medical/professional satire** ridicules doctors for being tiresome and useless - **Class humor** targets a "society man" complaining about his wife's social climbing - **Gender satire** skewers both husbands' excuses and wives' spending habits - **Working-class observations** joke about shopkeepers, dealers, and their frustrations The sketches employ the magazine's signature style: brief dialogues exposing hypocrisy, vanity, and social pretense among various classes. No specific political figures are caricatured on this page—instead, *universal* character types are lampooned.