The Wasp — 1893 — page 422: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains a humorous ghost story mocking San Francisco's Murphy family and local aristocracy. Skeletal illustrations show spirits disrupting a cemetery, engaging in absurd antics like reading newspapers and eating soup with knives. The satire targets the "Murphy gang" and San Francisco's "defunct aristocracy," suggesting the family's pretensions to gentility are ridiculous—literally treating them as corpses. References to "Nob Hill" (San Francisco's wealthy neighborhood) and mockery of the family's "coat-of-arms" indicate this ridicules old-money snobbery. The ghosts' complaints about newspaper articles and the family's behavior suggest public scandal. The piece uses supernatural humor to deflate social pretension—a common *Wasp* tactic. Specific current events or individuals remain unclear without additional historical context.