The Wasp — 1878 — page 13: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains a serialized short story titled "Bertie" by Emma Sara J., not a political cartoon. The narrative concerns romantic entanglements among upper-class characters: Captain Cain, Clare, Gordon Hop, and others. The story appears to satirize Victorian social conventions and romantic proprieties—particularly the emotional restraint expected of gentlemen and the limited agency of women in courtship. Captain Cain's struggle between propriety and desire, and Clare's manipulation of social expectations, mock the period's rigid decorum. The satire targets hypocrisy in how the wealthy class managed romance behind formal facades of honor and restraint. Without illustrations visible on this page, the humor relies entirely on the written narrative's ironic treatment of romantic posturing.