Genre:

Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Astronomy, Transport, Accidents

Publications cited:

Court Circular Court Circular (1856–1900+) Waterloo Directory
Close   View the register entry >>

    Reports on discussions between the Astronomer Royal, George B Airy Airy, Sir George Biddell (1801–92) DSB ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, and the statesman Edward Strutt Strutt, Edward, 1st Baron Belper (1801–80) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> on the 'atmospheric railway to the moon'. Insists that the great advantage of the railway is 'its superior facilities in promoting accidents'.

Genre:

Drama, Drollery

Subjects:

Chemistry

    Describes a conversation between two professors at the Royal Institution Royal Institution of Great Britain
Close   View the register entry >> on the marriage between Arthur Wellesley (1st Duke of Wellington) Wellesley, Arthur, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> and Angela G Burdett-Coutts Burdett-Coutts, Angela Georgina, 1st Baroness (1814–1906) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>. Professor Jones regards the union of the 'Iron Duke' and an heiress to be one of 'Iron and Tin'.

Genre:

Illustration, Satire; Reportage, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

N, pseud.  [William Newman] Newman, William (fl. 1842) Spielmann 1895
Close   View the register entry >> Spielmann, Marion Harry Alexander 1895. The History of "Punch", London: Cassell
Close   View the register entry >>

Subjects:

Railways, Invention, Amusement

    Announces that the 'leaping qualities of numerous Railway engines' are being used to form the basis of a railway steeplechase. Adds that 'steam jockeys' are to guide their locomotives over five-barred gates laid across railway tracks. The illustration shows three locomotives attempting to jump over gates.

Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Public Health, Disease, Government

    Manchester complains about the abandonment of the Health of Towns Bill and asks Russell (a reference to the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell Russell, Lord John, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>) for 'consolation'. Russell acknowledges Manchester's 'dirty condition' and sends an apron.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Chemistry, Disease, Public Health, Politics, Sanitation

    Asks why a chemist advertising a 'disinfecting fluid' doesn't use his product on the 'corruption' in France and England.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Medical Treatment, Class, Veterinary Science, Medical Practitioners

    Discusses an advertisement that it believes supports a distinction between the medicine practised on the rich and that on the poor. Argues that the 'assistant of the medical officer' of a poor law union doesn't need much expertise in medicine and midwifery, and is thus able, by reducing the population, to 'carry out the great object of the Poor Law'—reducing pauperism.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Entomology, Agriculture, Disease

    Reports that the vermin that have attacked the Indian corn imported into Ireland have 'acquired the appellations of "Squireens" and "Middlemen"'.

Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Subjects:

Public Health, Disease, Sanitation, Medical Treatment, Government

    Describes a conversation between the major English towns about their diseases. Leeds, for example, claims that he's 'with an epidemic troubled' and fears his 'hospitals must soon be doubled', while London complains of the neglect of its sewers, cesspools and sinks, and that it has all the ailments of the other towns and cities 'put together'. London despairs of 'physic' and wants 'a very sweeping reformation, / Not only of my streets, but Corporation'. One illustration shows an allegorical figure of death—a black skeleton wielding a scythe—amongst urban waste which includes 'Parr's Parr, Bartholomew (1750–1810) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> Pills'.

Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Archaeology, Societies

    Concerns the repeated opening of the 'perpetual' mummy by Thomas J Pettigrew Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph (1791–1865) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> at the 'Archæological Association' British Archaeological Association
Close   View the register entry >>. Advises Pettigrew to bury the mummy, adopt the motto 'Mum's the word', and explore such 'pickings of antiquity' as a 'nice fresh Sphinx'.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Geology, Vulcanology, Railways, Travel, Transport, Pollution

    Reports on the imminent visit of 'scientific gentlemen' to observe an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Explains why it is possible to gain an equally impressive display of 'hot coals and smoking cinders' while sitting in a third-class railway carriage near the engine.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Geology, Vulcanology

    Contemplates asking a geologist to 'ascertain the cause' of the frequent eruptions of 'flame and water' in the Strand and believes the cause must be 'an exhausted volcano' rather than imperfect gas pipes or water mains. Deeply worried by the prospect of walking over volcanoes 'every day of our lives'.

Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [3]

Illustrators:

N, pseud.  [William Newman] Newman, William (fl. 1842) Spielmann 1895
Close   View the register entry >> Spielmann, Marion Harry Alexander 1895. The History of "Punch", London: Cassell
Close   View the register entry >>

Subjects:

Light, Instruments, Amusement

    Describes the widespread use of telescopes during the 'summer and autumn sun' at Margate. Notes that uses of the telescope include observing people on steam-boats and, on inverting the instrument, gaining close-up views of food. Illustrations show a telescope being poked out of a window and consequently knocking over a passer-by, and a plethora of telescopes poking out of windows in a seaside hotel.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Quackery, Charlatanry, Mesmerism, Animal Magnetism, Homeopathy, Morality, Commerce

    Following news about advertising on German railway carriage blinds, argues that quack medical treatments, including both 'pills which profess to cure everything' and mesmerism, are 'blinds, which are drawn purposely to keep the public in the dark'. Advises German companies to follow the English example and try to make a profit out of these blinds.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Magnetism, Public Health, Sanitation, Government

    Communicates A Mackenzie's Mackenzie, A (fl. 1847) PU1/13/8/3
Close   View the register entry >> claim that the mud in 'certain parts of the Rose Lake' is 'so magnetic' that boatmen have 'greatest difficulty rowing over it'. Likens the boatmen to aldermen, who also appear to exhibit a 'secret sympathy' with mud.

Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Subjects:

Public Health, Sanitation, Politics, Government

    In a reference to the City of London's Corporation of London
Close   View the register entry >> refusal to be part of the Health of Towns Bill, describes 'How ST. GEORGE and ST. ANDREW in Holborn encountered and slew the great Dragon CLEANLINESS, that would have drawn them into a certain bath, wherein he sojourned'. Describes how the dragon lived 'in a bath', resorted to a 'terrible hill called Sanitary Law', and performed such terrible deeds as drying up Holborn's cesspools and stopping people from wallowing in its sewers. After the defeat of the dragon, the people 'abode in their filth' and their 'dung-heaps waxed larger than ever'. The illustration shows this conflict between the knights of foul substances and the dragon of cleanliness (a wash-bucket).

Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [3]

Subjects:

Military Technology, War

    Announces the invention of a portable cannon and discusses other products of the 'portable age'. Believes the invention might be 'giving cold shoulder to the musket, and discusses its impact on such aspects of culture as duelling and portraits of field marshals. Adds that the weapon will make killing so easy that 'persons will be ashamed to lend their hands to it'.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Heat, Matter Theory, Commerce

    Responding to an advertisement from a bankrupt selling 'Rough Ice' to 'Tea-Dealers and others', suggests that he was 'performing a series of scientific operations to ascertain how, by adopting the properties of ice [...] he could restore himself into a solvent state'.

Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Steamships, Invention, Engineering, Nationalism, War

    Celebrates the floating of the SS Great Britain SS Great Britain
Close   View the register entry >>, a ship formerly grounded 'On the bleak coast of Ireland'. Recollects the vain attempts to float the ship which 'lay, like a sheer-hulk, whose sailing is o'er', but adds that 'kind summer hath come, with its blessings so free, / And she floats, Our Great Britain, the Queen of the Sea!'. Asserts that the ship sustained storm and shoal, but was ready, 'When the world's fleet was shattered against the French main'.

Genre:

Notes, Drollery

Subjects:

Railways, Psychology, Metaphysics, Physiology, Human Species

    Likens the human mind to a carpet-bag, owing to the fact that 'with good packing it will contain any amount of useful contents'. Compares the human being to a railway by claiming that, 'the engine is the mind, the stoker appetite, and reason the engineer'. Likens metaphysics to a 'French dinner', since 'you may enjoy the results' but should avoid the 'processes by which they have been attained'.

Genre:

Illustration, Drollery; Essay, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

N, pseud.  [William Newman] Newman, William (fl. 1842) Spielmann 1895
Close   View the register entry >> Spielmann, Marion Harry Alexander 1895. The History of "Punch", London: Cassell
Close   View the register entry >>

Subjects:

Steamships, Invention

    Explains that 'Punch was the real cause of the SS Great Britain SS Great Britain
Close   View the register entry >> being got off', owing to the fact that it placed jokes in its caissons. The illustration shows Mr Punch and leading statesmen on a steamboat tugging the Great Britain.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Electricity

    Responds to news in 'our scientific contemporary, The Builder Builder (1842–1900+) Waterloo Directory
Close   View the register entry >>', that metal cards should be introduced 'for visits and invitations'. Discusses the difficulties of this plan, including the fact that if a card were left and 'a storm should arise, the electric fluid might pass over ordinary street railings and things of that sort, to find, in the hands of an unhappy flunky', some 'metal more attractive'.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery; Dialogue, Spoof

Subjects:

Sanitation, Public Health, Disease, Government

People mentioned:

Edwin Chadwick Chadwick, Sir Edwin (1800–90) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>

    Presents an imaginary conversation between various diseases following news of the formation of a sanitary commission for the metropolis. Diseases resent this intrusion. Typhus, for example, describes the sanitary reformer Thomas S Smith Smith, Thomas Southwood (1788–1861) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> as 'an ugly hand to deal with', while Cholera, who has been making 'miasma and gases' in his Fleet Ditch 'laboratory', suspected a change for the worse 'when they began to attack the precious principle of self-government'.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Invention, Class, Industry, Pneumatics

    Responds to news of the invention of 'Pneumatics Palates' by suggesting that such machines would enable wearers to live on air and thus be appropriate for use on St Pancras workhouse paupers.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Steamships, Engineering

    Discusses news that the SS Great Britain SS Great Britain
Close   View the register entry >> is 'lying upon the gridiron at Liverpool'. Believes this is 'as bad as a five-barred gate to a vessel like the Great Britain' but suggests that allowing the ship 'a few bars' rest' on a gridiron is desirable after enduring a 'heavy' launch.

Genre:

Letter, Spoof; Editorial, Drollery

Subjects:

Societies, Education, Progress, Amusement, Prognostication, Artisans

People mentioned:

Justus von Liebig Liebig, Justus von (1803–73) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>

    Written from the perspective of the 'Fast Man', Punch's hedonistic character. He is extremely gratified that 'two or three of your Literary and Scientific Societies' have been 'smashed'. Deflecting accusations of 'arresting the enlightenment', the narrator boasts that he has 'flummoxed the Literature and Science shops' with such popular amusements as 'casinos'. Points out that 'clerks and shopmen' would prefer 'conjuring tricks' to 'chemical experiments' and hopes that the 'Wizard of the North' (the magician, John Henry Anderson Anderson, John Henry (1815–74) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>) will 'snuff out' Michael Faraday Faraday, Michael (1791–1867) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>. Insists that scientific knowledge is useless to mechanics and tradesmen, and that such people thirst for a 'half-and-half' rather than knowledge. Objects to training the 'habits of thought', since the 'Human Mind prefers a lark to a lecture'. Punch adds that the Fast Man's conviction that he has destroyed scientific and literary societies suggests that he is 'essentially an Ape'.

Genre:

Illustration, Drollery; Essay, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Subjects:

Astronomy, Anthropomorphism

    Reports the 'disk-over-y' of spots or 'a sort of a rash' on the sun's disk. Explains that the 'enormous harvest upon which the sun has lately been luxuriating' has caused a 'repletion' in the sun and consequently in the number of spots. The illustration shows the sun with a human face, covered in an eye-patch and a few large black spots.

Genre:

Illustration, Drollery; Essay, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [3]

Illustrators:

N, pseud.  [William Newman] Newman, William (fl. 1842) Spielmann 1895
Close   View the register entry >> Spielmann, Marion Harry Alexander 1895. The History of "Punch", London: Cassell
Close   View the register entry >>

Subjects:

Railways, Invention, Sound, Music, Accidents

    Advises substituting 'musical instruments for the common whistles, and appropriate tunes could then be played in order to meet the various emergencies of railway travel'. Illustrations and text indicate how a giant rattle, a trombone, and drums might be used for this purpose.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Experiment, Scientific Practitioners, Nutrition

    Claims that 'science is no joke in its experimental stages', and reports on the case of a 'savant' who was bankrupted by experiments and theorising on means of keeping beef.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Natural History, Zoology, Politics

    Reports on the discovery of crocodiles in the palace of Compiegne, a phenomenon which 'French naturalists' explained by the fact that the animals were a present from Queen Isabella II Isabella II, Queen of Spain (1830–1904) CBD
Close   View the register entry >> of Spain to the former queen, Maria Christina Maria Christina, Queen of Spain (1806–78) CBD
Close   View the register entry >>.

Genre:

Drama, Drollery

Subjects:

Railways, Telegraphy, Accidents, Steam-power, Commerce, Travel, Transport

    Adapted from William Shakespeare's Shakespeare, William (1564–1616) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> Midsummer Night's Dream, the drama gives reasons why the 'course of Railways never did run smooth', including the fact that 'gradients were "unkimmon" steep', and the 'explosions' that 'lay hold of it'. Adds that it is 'Swift as the Telegraph, short as dividends' and 'ere the stoker can aloud cry "Ease her!" / The boiler bursts and blows us up'.

Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [3]

Subjects:

Railways, Invention, Amusement, Travel, Transport

    Suggests a solution to the taxing problems of 'communicating between the guards and passengers' on railways: a wooden figure, 'known in the nursery by the name of scaramouches', whose face and limbs can be made to express appropriate signals 'by means of a string'.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Subjects:

Astronomy, Politics, Commerce

    Reports on the crowds that flocked to London to see an eclipse of the sun. Regards the event as 'successful', but points out that it distracted attention from 'the total eclipse of another golden orb'—that of Queen Victoria Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India (1819–1901) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>—by the 'eccentric planet, PEEL Peel, Sir Robert, 2nd Baronet (1788–1850) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>'. The latter eclipse is due to Peel's 'broad and expansive movement', which drove away 'several little satellites of small note that used to take their rise about the Bank of England Bank of England
Close   View the register entry >>'. The illustration shows Peel as the dark side of the moon eclipsing the sun, on whose face is seen Victoria's profile and name.

Genre:

Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Mathematics, Universities, Education, Railways, Time, Publishing

    Reports that deciphering the meaning of the notoriously complicated Bradshaw's Railway Guide Bradshaw, George 1847. Bradshaw's Monthly Railway and Steam Navigation Guide for Great Britain, Ireland, and the Continent, London: Bradshaw's General Railway Publications Office
Close   View the register entry >> is to be added to Euclid Euclid (fl. 295 BC) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> in University of Cambridge University of Cambridge
Close   View the register entry >> examinations. Believes the South Eastern Railway Company's South Eastern Railway Company
Close   View the register entry >> mysterious timetable and fare guide, will prove to be a popular Christmas puzzle.

Genre:

Reportage, Spoof; Illustration, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Subjects:

Astronomy, Meteorology, Charlatanry

    Reports on a 'hoax played off upon the public', who flocked to Blackheath to observe the eclipse, only to experience continuous rain. Argues that although the sun 'could scarcely have been suspected of such an imposition', its 'character has not been lately quite as spotless as it ought to be'. The illustration shows a crowd attempting to observe the eclipse in the rain.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Natural History, Government, Animal Behaviour, Commerce, Political Economy

Publications cited:

Annals of Natural History Magazine of Zoology and Botany (1836–38) Annals of Natural History (1838–40) Annals and Magazine of Natural History (1841–1900+) Waterloo Directory
Close   View the register entry >>

    Reports on news that Mr Munsby Munsby, Mr (fl. 1847) PU1/13/16/1
Close   View the register entry >> has 'discovered the true Lotus in the Nitraria tridentata' near Tunis. Rejects this claim and insists that the 'true Lotus grows in England', and 'wraps a man in sweetest indolence, making him careless, if not entirely oblivious, of the wants and miseries of his own country'. Explains why the lotus is 'the golden fruit of the Treasury Treasury
Close   View the register entry >>', of which 'HER MAJESTY'S ministers' have 'taken a bellyful'.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Subjects:

Railways, Sound, Travel, Politics

    Expresses irritation at 'the number of ridiculous suggestions' for signalling between passengers and guards on railway trains, including 'pulling the guard off his perch by a rope tied around his waist', and 'a speaking-trumpet' running 'throughout the whole train of carriages, with a tube terminating in the ear of every passenger'. The illustration depicts a guard having to deal with a signal from Henry P Brougham (1st Baron Brougham and Vaux) Brougham, Henry Peter, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, a statesmen ridiculed for his verbosity.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Homeopathy, Medical Treatment, Commerce, Class

Publications cited:

The Times The Times (1777–1900+) Waterloo Directory
Close   View the register entry >>

    Expresses astonishment at the amount of medicine that a Mr Garlick Garlick, Mr (fl. 1848) PU1/13/16/3
Close   View the register entry >>, medical officer for Halifax, has supplied to his poor-law patients. Equally baffled by Garlick's complaint that the daily remuneration from this trade is only £20. Advises poor-law guardians that to prevent such a loss of money caused by a medical officer's wrong-doing, they should hire homeopathic doctors as medical officers, and thus only have to pay out for 'infinitesimal doses' of medicine.

Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Astronomy, Scientific Practitioners, Amateurism, Discovery, Periodicals, Error, Observation

    Calls for a 'check to be kept on the alleged discoveries of the amateur astronomers', not least because the editors of the newspapers to which these practitioners send their work have 'no opportunities for testing [... a] correspondent's veracity'. Regards the appointment of somebody commissioned to keep a register of celestial objects as 'very conducive to the interests of science', a vast improvement on the 'loose system of keeping our astronomical accounts which is now in force', and a way of checking whether a star is in its 'proper place' or 'a mere optical illusion of the alleged discoverer'.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Railways, Education, Patronage, Societies

    Responding to news that the South Eastern Railway Company South Eastern Railway Company
Close   View the register entry >> is to provide its workmen with a 'Literary and Scientific Institution', hopes that passengers can also look forward to being brought out of darkness.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [3]

Subjects:

Military Technology, Invention, Narcotics, Measurement

    Reports on Christian F Schönbein's Schönbein, Christian Friedrich (1799–1868) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> invention of a process for giving 'papier-mache all the transparency of glass'. Regards the invention as opportune owing to the rapid sinking of ale and wine bottles 'under that mysterious internal disorder' that makes quarts of the present shrink into the pints of the eighteenth century. Text and illustration explore the disastrous effect of making bottles, glasses, and mirrors from Schönbein's material. Believes the material will give employment to 'much of the bad paper now afloat in the market'.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Astronomy, Light, Instruments

    Reports on a proposal to 'admit the whole of the gas lights on London Bridge' to the star catalogue, and adds that each lamp will be given a 'patent of precedence' enabling it to 'rank with ordinary stars of the first magnitude'.

Genre:

Review, Drollery

Publications reviewed:

Broderip 1847 Broderip, William John 1847. Zoological Recreations, London: H. Colburn
Close   View the register entry >>

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [3]

Subjects:

Zoology, Animal Behaviour, Amusement

    Applauds the book under review because it believes that the 'class of animals having a tendency to formidable and destructive habits' should participate in 'harmless amusement[s]'. Relishes the prospect of seeing bulls skipping and elephants playing skittles, since such activities will keep the animals 'out of mischief'. Illustrations depict these strange activities.

Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Photography, Invention, Crime, Commerce

    Describes his 'modification of the Daguerreotype' that is sensitive to the 'faintest candlelight' and 'a dark lantern'. Claims that it can be used to detect thieves breaking into the 'strong box' of a counting house (which it believes is full of money, despite the 'commercial distress' in the country), and thus supersede the 'services of the Detective Police'.

Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Animal Magnetism, Mesmerism, Publishing

Publications cited:

Presse Presse (1849–56) BUCOP
Close   View the register entry >>

    Notes that Alexandre D D P Dumas Dumas, Alexandre (Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie) (1802–70) CBD
Close   View the register entry >> resolved never to believe in animal magnetism until he put some somnambulist to sleep 'without his being aware of my intention'. The writer adds that, coincidentally, in his last novel he 'put hundreds to sleep without even my publisher knowing my intention'.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Meteorology, Charlatanry, Observation, Amateurism

    Punch proposes adding to its establishment 'a gentleman' who will record 'fluctuations of heat and cold' by using his fingers, toes, and the end of his nose. Notes the unsatisfactory nature of observations made by this means but presents deductions from rain collected in an umbrella stand and from 'twenty-yaws against our drawing-room window'.

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Aeronautics, Military Technology, Invention, War, Charlatanry

    Discusses a report in the Eco del Comercio Eco del Comercio (1868–1900+) BUCOP
Close   View the register entry >> announcing M de Montmayor's Montmayor, M de Montmayor (fl. 1848) PU1/13/19/3
Close   View the register entry >> invention of a balloon, which can carry 'two pieces of cannon' to be discharged 'on the enemies of Spain'. Dismisses the claim, believing cannons in the air 'can only be mounted on castles in the same situation'.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Telegraphy, Publishing

    Reports that 'penny-a-liners' fear being superseded by reporting via the electric telegraph. Dismisses this possibility, pointing out that the electric telegraph only furnishes 'rather wire-drawn' reports.

Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Railways, Engineers, Commerce, Expertise

    Discusses decline of the railway surveyors, the individuals who 'sprung up like mushrooms' when the soil was made fertile by 'railway speculation', but have subsequently fallen into such financial hardship that they 'are scarcely able to construct a bridge to carry them safely over their last week's washing-bill'. Observes that their 'ingenuity is now required' to overcome the problems of fulfilling their hopes of 'becoming, in time, BRUNELS Brunel, Isambard Kingdom (1806–59) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> or STEPHENSONS Stephenson, George (1781–1848) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>'.

Genre:

Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Invention, Domestic Economy, Politics, Government

    Describes Mr Bellamy's Bellamy, Mr (fl. 1847) PU1/13/21/1
Close   View the register entry >> invention of a 'Patriots Portable Pantechnicon', for gentlemen who are determined to 'sit, sleep, and if necessary, die in the House [of Commons] House of Commons
Close   View the register entry >>, in the cause of Ireland', but who wish to be fed and shaved, and to have somewhere to sleep and be buried.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Time, Instruments, Railways, Metrology

    Reports on the 'excitement' and 'trouble' caused 'by an attempt to assimilate the time by all the clocks on all the railways'. Observes that the method is to 'send a clerk every half hour from Greenwich Royal Observatory, Greenwich
Close   View the register entry >>, to every station on every line' and 'set every clock by the time observed in that perfect paragon of punctuality'. Notes that this has caused a discrepancy between the time on Liverpool's railway and town hall clocks, and a 'derangement of the Bill system'.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Astronomy, Time, Railways

    Reports that the sun has 'disdained to shine' because his 'account of the hour' has been dismissed at various railway stations.

Genre:

Illustration, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

J L, pseud.  [John Leech] Leech, John (1817–64) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> Spielmann, Marion Harry Alexander 1895. The History of "Punch", London: Cassell
Close   View the register entry >>

Subjects:

Disease, Public Health

    Shows Mr Punch suffering from influenza during an epidemic. Wrapped in his night-clothes and eating 'gruel', he complains to readers that his condition is 'no joke'.

Genre:

News-Commentary

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [3]

Subjects:

Publishing, Reading, Creation, Evolution, Cosmology, Cultural Geography

    Reports on the sorry fate of Chambers 1844 [Chambers, Robert] 1844. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, London: John Churchill
Close   View the register entry >>, a book that both publishers and authors are disowning. Notes that since the statesman Henry P Brougham (1st Baron Brougham and Vaux) Brougham, Henry Peter, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> kept the book for 'several weeks' he was regarded as its author and it 'sold another edition'. Describes how the book 'ran about town' trying unsuccessfully to attract scientific or literary men, and being 'threatened with the police', and that the 'Vicissitudes of the Vestiges of Creation' would make a 'pathetic little book'. Punch would 'take it in' with cheese, provided Mr Punch was not accused of being the author. Discusses possibility of giving this 'friendless little literary orphan' its own parish but adds that it 'does not know its father'. Urges the book to go to Ireland and wonders why 'no Irishman has yet declared himself the author'. Illustrations variously show Vestiges being kicked by a mob, pushed under a Brougham-shaped door-knocker, and as an orphan outside the 'Foundling Hospital'.

Genre:

Editorial, Drollery

Subjects:

Disease, Medical Treatment

    Argues that the best cure for influenza 'is the Irish loan, for every body will allow that that is not to be sneezed at'.

Genre:

Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Disease, Government

    Describes some of the effects of the influenza on the 'public service', including the fact that Somerset House Somerset House
Close   View the register entry >> has been a 'perfect hospital' and everyone 'in attendance [...] has been speaking through a worsted comforter', while 'postmen [...] have come gasping and tottering to our doors in a most deplorable state'.