The Wasp — 1888 — page 527: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical strip titled "The Miner's Progress" presents a journey through a prospector's life using the narrative structure "The Wasp" suggests—showing moral decline or social commentary through sequential stages. The panels depict a miner's deterioration: he demonstrates bad habits, deserts friends, anticipates a poor end, searches futilely for fortune, yearns for "grub" (food/money), dreams of home, finds family rejection, attempts digging/labor, and finally rejoices over accumulated wealth. The satire likely critiques either Gold Rush mentality—showing how mining obsession destroys character and relationships—or comments on working-class desperation and moral compromise in pursuit of wealth. The progression from respectability to degradation to desperate prosperity suggests the corrupting nature of mineral wealth-seeking.