The Wasp — 1878 — page 126: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains a humor column titled "Answers to Correspondents" featuring satirical responses to reader inquiries. The left side includes various humorous "answers" to questions about topics like buglers, bannocks, knives, and compromises—typical Victorian-era practical joke advice meant to mock both the questioners and societal pretensions. The right side shifts to narrative humor pieces: "The Menagerie Business" mocks incompetent elephant-keeping; "He Preferred to Walk" satirizes a Mississippi steamboat engineer; and "Made a Difference" is a brief anecdote about a young man encountering a tiger at City Hall. The bottom features "Spring Time," a brief poem with accompanying illustration about spring cleaning's unpleasantness. The humor relies on exaggeration and absurdist situations typical of late-19th-century American satirical magazines.