The Wasp — 1879 — page 400: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical cartoon mocks what appears to be a dubious California invention: "Kaplan's New Registration Mill" (visible on the central machine). The imagery suggests fraud or deception in voter registration. The large caricatured head on the left (with prominent mustache) likely represents someone associated with this scheme, possibly the inventor Kaplan. Gentlemen in top hats climb ladders to feed into the machine at the top, while registered voters emerge at the bottom—suggesting the mill mechanically manufactures fraudulent registrations rather than legitimately processing them. The satire critiques California's electoral corruption: that the "registration mill" produces false voters through an industrial process, mocking both the invention itself and the political manipulation it represents.