England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
‘A paper was read by the secretary descriptive of a bay pony with one
eye, which had been seen by the author standing in a butcher’s cart at
the corner of Newgate Market. The communication described the author of
the paper as having, in the prosecution of a mercantile pursuit, betaken
himself one Saturday morning last summer from Somers Town to Cheapside;
in the course of which expedition he had beheld the extraordinary
appearance above described. The pony had one distinct eye, and it had
been pointed out to him by his friend Captain Blunderbore, of the Horse
Marines, who assisted the author in his search, that whenever he winked
this eye he whisked his tail (possibly to drive the flies off), but that
he always winked and whisked at the same time. The animal was lean,
spavined, and tottering; and the author proposed to constitute it of the
family of _Fitfordogsmeataurious_. It certainly did occur to him that
there was no case on record of a pony with one clearly-defined and
distinct organ of vision, winking and whisking at the same moment.
‘MR. Q. J. SNUFFLETOFFLE had heard of a pony winking his eye, and
likewise of a pony whisking his tail, but whether they were two ponies or
the same pony he could not undertake positively to say. At all events,
he was acquainted with no authenticated instance of a simultaneous
winking and whisking, and he really could not but doubt the existence of
such a marvellous pony in opposition to all those natural laws by which
ponies were governed. Referring, however, to the mere question of his
one organ of vision, might he suggest the possibility of this pony having
been literally half asleep at the time he was seen, and having closed
only one eye.
‘THE PRESIDENT observed that, whether the pony was half asleep or fast
asleep, there could be no doubt that the association was wide awake, and
therefore that they had better get the business over, and go to dinner.
He had certainly never seen anything analogous to this pony, but he was
not prepared to doubt its existence; for he had seen many queerer ponies
in his time, though he did not pretend to have seen any more remarkable
donkeys than the other gentlemen around him.
‘PROFESSOR JOHN KETCH was then called upon to exhibit the skull of the
late Mr. Greenacre, which he produced from a blue bag, remarking, on
being invited to make any observations that occurred to him, “that he’d
pound it as that ’ere ’spectable section had never seed a more gamerer
cove nor he vos.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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