The Comic Almanack, Volume 2: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities
David Hume · en
The Queen, _en voyage_, accompanied by Prince Albert, will pay a visit
to Calcutta, by the overland route, and come home by St. Petersburgh;
starting, immediately on her return, for Ireland, and thence to New
York: the whole being accomplished within the month. Great confusion in
the houses of the nobility she unexpectedly looks in upon—begging of
extra servants, borrowing of plate, and stealing of evergreens. The
illustrated papers for the week contain their thirty engravings as
usual, and they are all triumphal arches.
Several shooting stars will be visible in the northern district about
the twelfth. Sultry weather: and the Wenham Lake ice has all melted. _Ne
sutor ultra crepidam_—no more sherry cobbler after the last.
M. Jullien will give a Concert Monstre, and introduce his Leviathan
Ophicleide, prepared for the country festivals, and containing living,
cooking, and sleeping conveniences for his entire orchestra.
HORRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—An express train will leap over the wall of a
viaduct, when those who expected to "go down" by it will not be
disappointed.
SEPTEMBER
The Annual Blockade, or Great Plague of London, by the Commissioners of
Sewers and Improvements, will take place this month. The nearest way
from St. Paul's to Temple Bar will be through Farringdon Street,
Smithfield, across Gray's Inn Lane, Theobald's Road (Holborn is also
closed), Red Lion Square, Queen Street, and Drury Lane. Endless rows
with cabmen in consequence, who object to eightpence for the distance.
General emigration of the British, who will be found everywhere, in the
language of the month, in large coveys, strong on the wing, and offering
excellent sport to foreigners. It is probable that the last man about
town will commit suicide in the centre of Leicester Square; to explore
which hitherto unknown locality an expedition will be fitted out, now
that the new street has opened a facility of communication with the
interior.
The stars portend the ultimate death of Bartholomew Fair, Esquire, after
several years of wasting decline, the result of injuries received some
time ago from the corporation of London. He will lie in state in
Smithfield for three days, on a handsome bier of gilt gingerbread, and
under a canopy of show-canvas, with incense burning round him from
altars of sausage-stoves. The Black Wild Indian, the Fair Circassian,
the Yorkshire Giant, the Welsh Dwarf, the Fat Boy, the Living Skeleton,
and the Ghost from Richardson's, will in turn act as mourners.
ANNOYING RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—The train will break down in the middle of a
two-mile tunnel, and will not be discovered until pushed out by the
next.
OCTOBER.