Genre:

Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Societies, Geology, Archaeology, Electricity, Electrochemistry, Astronomy, Zoology, Meteorology

    Reports that the Geological Society met 'for the purpose of breaking stones on the Hammersmith Road' and a dispute over wages caused members to break the nose of the overseer. Members discovered an 'ancient sacrificial vessel used in libations' and one member allegedly got drunk on some 'antique copper coins' he discovered. The London Electrical Society met to explore a new method of making thunder and lightning for electrical use and its other activities included eating electrical eel pies, and consuming Whitbread stout to 'trace the galvanic action produced by the contact of the pewter pot with the moisture of the under lip'. The Royal Astronomical Society met at Covent Garden Theatre to determine to which '"order of Stars" Adelaide Kemble and Mrs Shaw belonged', and the Zoological Society met on the '"bears", "bulls", and "lame ducks", of the Stock Exchange'. Specimens of '"orchestral fiddlers", "soul-entrancing poets", "nice young men" and "noble lords"' were placed among the mammalia'.