The Wasp — 1890 — page 123: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

The cartoon titled "A Query" depicts a thin, formally-dressed man surrounded by papers and documents, appearing disheveled or distressed. The accompanying text references a prohibitionist giving a temperance lecture who argues "you must refrain from intoxicating drinks," yet "he lives in a house like the one pictured above." The satire targets **hypocrisy of prohibition advocates**—specifically, the contradiction between preaching abstinence while maintaining a comfortable, well-furnished lifestyle that the text suggests depends on alcohol-related wealth or industry. This reflects late 19th/early 20th-century tensions over Prohibition, when critics attacked temperance campaigners as sanctimonious or financially motivated, rather than genuinely principled.