The Wasp — 1894 — page 449: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

The central cartoon depicts two figures in what appears to be a domestic interior. Based on the caption "A POLITICIAN" and the dialogue, this satirizes political hypocrisy regarding principles and morality. The dialogue reveals the satire: a politician claims to "always consider principles before men," yet his wife counters that he took money from her father despite his stated principles. The husband admits he was "afraid that if he had not told me he humbly believed he had been rejected." The joke targets politicians who publicly espouse moral principles while privately compromising them for personal gain—a timeless critique of political dishonesty. The domestic setting emphasizes the contradiction between public virtue and private behavior, suggesting such hypocrisy is so common it extends even to family relationships.