Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Telegraphy, Domestic Economy

    Discusses a proposal to lay telegraphs within 100 yards of 'every man's door'. While Punch accepts the benefits of being within 'five minutes' of pleasant invitations and news, deplores the consequences 'of being within five minutes of every noodle who wants to ask you a question, of every dun with a "little account", of every acquaintance who has a favour to beg'. Claims that the present arrangement of telegraphs saves him from 'Mrs. P's anxieties' and other questions, but 'with a House-Telegraph, it would be a perpetual téte-à-téte' with her, and would lead to such undesirable consequences of being 'always in company [...] with all our acquaintance', of being unable to gain solitude, and of 'being able to oversee and overhear all that is being done or said concerning us all over London!'. Concludes by denying that society is 'quite ripe for the House-Telegraph yet'.