_Leonora._ Oh, don't talk of _Bradshaw_! _Bradshaw_ has nearly maddened me. _Orlando_. And me. He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start; Of trains that seem to start, and ne'er arrive; Of junctions where no union is effected; Of coaches meeting trains that never come; Of trains to catch a coach that never goes; Of trains that start after they have arrived; Of trains arriving long before they leave. He bids us "see" some page that can't be found; Or if 'tis found, it speaks of spots remote From those we seek to reach! By _Bradshaw's_ aid You've tried to get to London--I attempted To get to Liverpool--and here we are, At Chester--'Tis a junction--I'm content Our union--at this junction--to cement. And let us hope, nor you nor I again May be attacked with _Bradshaw_ on the brain. _Leonora._ I'm happy now! My husband! _Orlando._ Ah, my bride! Henceforth take me--not _Bradshaw_--for your guide. _The curtain falls._ "Orlando's" speech is a good summary of the humours of _Bradshaw_ as analysed in _Punch's_ "Comic Guide" some years later. From steam to electricity the transition is obvious. _Punch_ notes the adoption of the "Electro-Magnetic Telegraph" by the Great Western Railway in the summer of 1844. In 1845 we read of an electric gun to fire 1,000 balls a minute. The laying of a submarine cable from Dover to Calais is discussed in 1846, but was not realized till five years afterwards, when _Punch_ hailed the completion of the scheme as a new link between the two countries and celebrated it in a cartoon and a sonnet. Already the influence of electricity on international relations had been foreshadowed, and in the same year in which Palmerston repudiated responsibility for the welcome of Kossuth in England _Punch_ rudely described his message as "electric lying." The days of "wireless diplomacy" in the old sense of the epithet were passing, to the embarrassment of representatives who were within immediate hail of the central Government. Soon we begin to hear complaints of the new service on the score of delays and excessive charges, and when an earthquake shock was felt "for the first time" in Ireland in the winter of 1852, _Punch_ notes that a writer in the _Limerick Chronicle_ attributed it to the atmospheric influence of the electric telegraph! Electricity as an illuminant elicited an optimistic if somewhat previous eulogy in 1849; and cooking by electricity is foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the transatlantic cable is welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact, but _Punch's_ compliments had a sting in their tail when he wrote the following lines:-- AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN A NEW LINE