The Wasp — 1891 — page 61: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical cartoon depicts the chaos caused by the Victorian custom of New Year's social calling—formal visits paid on January 1st. The multi-panel narrative shows escalating disorder: genteel drawing-room visits devolve into crowded chaos, with children running wild, servants overwhelmed, and the household's order completely disrupted. The satire mocks how this supposedly refined social tradition actually created pandemonium. The final panels show the absurd result: infants left unsupervised in the nursery while adults attempt to maintain propriety upstairs. By depicting the custom's logical endpoint—total household dysfunction—the cartoonist argues the tradition deserved abandonment. The humor targets both pretentious upper-class social rituals and the impracticality of maintaining them.