MrPunch's history of modern England . viceon the score of delays and excessive charges, and when anearthquake shock was felt for the first time in Ireland inthe winter of 1852, Punch notes that a writer in the LimerickChronicle attributed it to the atmospheric influence of the electrictelegraph ! Electricity as an illuminant elicited an optimisticif somewhat previous eulogy in 1849; and cooking by electricityis foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the transatlantic cableis welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact, butPunchs compliments had a sting in their tail when he \yrotethe followi
MrPunch's history of modern England . viceon the score of delays and excessive charges, and when anearthquake shock was felt for the first time in Ireland inthe winter of 1852, Punch notes that a writer in the LimerickChronicle attributed it to the atmospheric influence of the electrictelegraph ! Electricity as an illuminant elicited an optimisticif somewhat previous eulogy in 1849; and cooking by electricityis foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the transatlantic cableis welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact, butPunchs compliments had a sting in their tail when he \yrotethe following lines : — AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN A NEW LINE It Is much to be hoped that the telegraph wire. About to be laid down, will not form a lyre, On which to strike discord twixt the old world and new; Though scarce can we hope all its messages true, For then tother side would have nothing to do. Punchs interest in aeronautics dates from his earliest in-fancy, though his mixture of prophecy and satire is rather con- 72 Aviation Forecasts. AERIAL STEAM CARRIAGE fusing. Designs of aerial steamships abound in his columns;and one of them is not too bad an anticipation of the 1845 there was actually a periodical called The Balloon,though Punch is jocular at the expense of its very limitedclientele. Still, though the number of aeronauts was few, theirenterprise attracted a great deal of attention, and Green, whomade 526 ascents between 1821 and 1852, including his famoustrip from Vauxhall to Weilburg in Nassau, is frequently men-tioned. Punch, to his credit, inveighed vehemently againstthe senseless inhumanity of aeronautic acrobats who madea practice of taking up animals with them. He was lessfortunate in his dogmatic pronouncement in 1851 that theballoon was a perfectly useless invention, and in his scorn-ful dismissal, four years later, of the suggestion that it mightbe useful in warfare : — Everybody, including-, of course, all the nobodies, would seem tohave some pecu
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1921
