The Wasp — 1880 — page 19: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page from *The Wasp* contains the full text of a four-act play titled "Deception" by Dr. Callaghan, presented at the Baldwin theater. The play involves aristocratic French characters—the Count de Lignieres, his wife Elise, their daughter Mathilde, and various other nobles—caught in romantic intrigues and secrets spanning seventeen years. The plot concerns a love affair, a hidden child, blackmail, and questions of honor and revenge among the French upper classes. Without visible illustrations on this page, the satire likely targets either theatrical conventions of the era or specific social scandals among San Francisco's elite, though the exact contemporary references remain unclear from text alone.