References to "Zazel," the acrobat who was nightly shot from a cannon, and to Zazel's successor, "Zæo," abound in protests not only against the enterprising manager, and the cynical indifference of the Home Secretary, but above all against the public who went simply because of the risk, the chance of seeing accidents. "Zazel's" performance, as a matter of fact, was not as dangerous as it appeared; it proved a theme of fruitful burlesque on the part of Nellie Farren at the Gaiety Theatre; and when it was rumoured that Zazel was going to marry an Archdeacon, _Punch_ did not refrain from a ribald allusion to her passing "out of the mouth of a Canon into the arms of an Archdeacon." At the same time he was equally critical of the ostentatiously labelled "Entertainments for the People" organized as a sort of compromise between High Art, the Penny Reading and the Variety Stage. The efforts of the Kyrle Society to "bring Beauty home to the working-classes" left him cold or facetiously intolerant of patronizing preciosity. So, too, the performances at the Victoria Coffee Music-Hall in 1881 are damned with less than faint praise in a criticism put into the mouth of one of the class they were intended to reach, on the grounds that they were not only teetotal, but third-rate music-hall, and dull at that. The whole thing was spoiled by an atmosphere of conscious edification and of condescending patronage. _Punch's_ attitude to the series of annual exhibitions which began with the "Fisheries" in 1883, underwent many phases. It began in hope and mild praise, but ended in disillusion, as the side-shows, _al fresco_ entertainments, bands and illuminations, and the everlasting "Welcome Club," became the stereotyped and dominating attractions of each successive show. _Punch_ wanted the site of the Fisheries made into a permanent Public Garden with a shilling gate money. But while he applauded the good intention of the promoters, he represented the West End fishmonger as "none the worse for it": the price of fish had not come down as it was thought it would. [Sidenote: _Exhibition Absurdities_]