The Wasp — 1877 — page 155: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a six-panel satirical narrative about a laborer seeking work. The story follows a man complaining about farm toil who seeks employment elsewhere. He leaves the farm boasting of adventure, but quickly encounters hardship: he's arrested for vagrancy, jailed in "Cell Number Nine," and fined heavily. Meanwhile, ladies admire his "cow-country sport" before he's exhausted. Finally, he returns to the ranch "in great grief," humbled and disillusioned. The satire mocks both the hired man's false expectations of urban life and critiques the legal system's treatment of itinerant workers. It suggests that leaving agricultural labor for supposed freedom only leads to arrest, exploitation, and poverty—implying that migrant workers had few legitimate options and faced systemic disadvantage.