The Wasp — 1893 — page 565: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page features a satirical cartoon titled "The Kind of a Robber He Would Be," depicting a well-dressed man in a top hat and a fashionably dressed woman in conversation at a small table. The joke concerns aspiration and social climbing: when asked if he'd run for Supervisor or School Director, the man claims he wouldn't because there's "too much competition," preferring to be "a straight out footpad" since there are "only about fifty of them to the block in San Francisco just now." The satire mocks how certain professions—including apparently street robbery—had become so overcrowded that even criminals faced market saturation. It reflects late-19th century San Francisco's social anxieties about competition and urban crime. The page also contains text advertising *The Christmas Wasp*, describing it as a forty-page illustrated weekly publication.