The Wasp — 1888 — page 255: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains three distinct sections: a poem titled "Good-bye," a section on "Swearing for the Family" (a humorous anecdote about Chinese missionary examinations), and "Selling Mummies by Sample" (describing Egyptian mummy sales). The main cartoon depicts two women in Victorian dress examining what appears to be Egyptian mummies or artifacts. The satirical point seems to mock the contemporary craze for Egyptian antiquities and the dubious sales practices around them—the "sample" sales method suggests fraud or misrepresentation. The right column discusses local San Francisco politics, mentioning Republican and Democratic nominations for various positions (County Clerk, Superior Judge, etc.), indicating this is election-period satire. The overall tone targets both commercial charlatanism and political maneuvering of the era.