The Wasp — 1888 — page 68: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is primarily **a title page and advertisement compilation**, not a satirical cartoon page. The masthead announces *The Wasp* (Volume XXI, Number 4, July 28, 1888) with ornate lettering. Below are dozens of San Francisco business advertisements for services including real estate, photography, dentistry, business college, investment banking, patent water closets, wall paper, hand-made shoes, and various tonics and bitters. The only illustrated figures appear in advertisements: a bearded man promoting Wilson's Vaporizing Inhaler for treating "catarrh, asthma, bronchitis, dumbness," and a man's portrait advertising "Dr. Henley's Celebrated Bitters" as a medicinal tonic. There is **no evident political satire or social commentary** on this particular page—it functions as a commercial vehicle for San Francisco merchants and service providers of the 1880s.