The Wasp — 1890 — page 103: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains **satirical news items and commentary**, not political cartoons. The single illustration shows two figures in conversation with the caption "Sir: Great God, Charlie, what's the matter! I thought you went to the Y.M.C.A. picnic!" The jokes target California's "New York Colony"—wealthy Eastern transplants. Items mock: - **Mrs. Kip** and elite San Francisco society figures - **"Johnny" Gait**'s raisins being rejected by New York grocers as inferior California produce - **Edwin Stevens** leaving a casino job - **Rudyard Kipling** as a presumptuous writer lacking original ideas The humor satirizes Eastern snobbery toward California, pretentious settlers, and cultural hypocrisy. The Y.M.C.A. reference suggests moral contradiction. Overall, this targets class pretension and East-West cultural tensions of the era.