The Wasp — 1891 — page 223: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This eight-panel satirical sequence depicts a boarding house experience titled "The First Night of Sleep—Robbed." The cartoon mocks the false promises of cheap lodgings. **The narrative:** A landlady advertises "Mrs. Hasher's Boarders Taken At The Comforts Of Home," but the panels expose this as a lie. A tenant experiences successive nights of escalating disturbances: noises, bed bugs or parasites, a roommate's snoring, and domestic chaos. The final panel shows him defeated and departing. **The satire:** Working-class boarders seeking affordable housing were frequently deceived by landlords' exaggerated claims. The cartoon critiques the gap between advertised comfort and the actual squalid conditions poor renters endured—a persistent urban social problem in 19th-century America.