The Wasp — 1891 — page 71: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

The top cartoon depicts two men at a "Coyote City Telephone Office." The caption introduces a "Big-Square-Face" telephone agent confronting a smaller man ("Heap small man, him live in there!"). This appears to be satirizing either: - Telephone company service or operators' rudeness toward customers - Ethnic stereotyping (the "heap" dialect suggests mocking Native American speech patterns) - The absurdity of early telephone technology or frontier communication The cartoon ridicules someone's appearance while mocking how communications technology or service providers treated ordinary citizens. The "Lilliputian" reference (from Gulliver's Travels) emphasizes the power imbalance between the dismissive agent and the diminished customer. The surrounding text discusses local political figures and civic matters unrelated to the cartoon.