The Wasp — 1894 — page 404: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page is primarily **advertisements** for San Francisco businesses (breweries, clothiers, laundries, medicines). The one cartoon titled "SQUELSHED" depicts a poorly-dressed man and an elegantly-dressed woman in conversation. The man says: "I may be poor, but there was a time when I rode in a carriage. She too, and her mother pushed it, too." **The joke:** This appears to satirize class pretension and social mobility. The man claims former carriage-riding status as a mark of gentility, while the woman's "carriage" riding involved pushing a baby carriage as a nurse or servant—exposing his hollow claim to shared respectability. It's a commentary on the absurdity of false pride regarding vague past circumstances to claim social equality with someone of genuinely higher station.