The Wasp — 1879 — page 663: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes a legal dispute involving package shipping and liability. The illustration depicts two figures in confrontation—likely representing parties in a lawsuit about a misdirected package sent via Wells Fargo & Co. The accompanying text discusses a case before Sacramento's Supreme Court involving a man convicted of misdemeaning, with debate over whether forwarding company H.C. or the recipient bears responsibility for damages. The satire targets the legal system's complexity and the absurd outcomes when ordinary citizens become entangled in disputes over shipping liability. The cartoon's title "Human Trash and their Deserts" suggests mockery of how the legal process treats common people as insignificant, tossed about by bureaucratic systems indifferent to justice. The rest of the page contains a festival advertisement unrelated to the cartoon.