The Wasp — 1877 — page 217: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This four-panel satirical comic critiques Victorian marriage and social hypocrisy through domestic scenarios. The top-left panel shows a henpecked husband, mocking traditional marriage dynamics. The top-right panel features a traveler and missionary discussing cannibals eating human flesh on Fridays—likely satirizing both colonial attitudes toward non-Western peoples and Christian hypocrisy about "civilized" society's violence. The bottom panels appear to continue social criticism: one mocks an engineer or tardy worker making excuses about neighborhood conditions; the other depicts what appears to be a retail transaction involving a bull pup, possibly satirizing consumer culture or commercial deception. The overall tone suggests *The Wasp* used sharp humor to critique Victorian social pretensions, marriage inequalities, and racist colonial attitudes.