Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Astrology, Charlatanry, Crime, Quackery, Education, Prognostication

People mentioned:

Richard J Morrison , Robert C Smith

    Ridicules the text on seven cards of 'The knaves who pretend to read the stars for the fools' with which Mr Punch has been favoured. The analysis of the first card from an 'Astral Professor' derides the practitioner's notion of 'vegetable astronomy' and notes his apparent links with quack medicine. Ridicules the fact that the astrologer on the fourth card 'not only reads the skies, but makes machines for protecting you against their influence [umbrellas]'. The fifth card is from an astrologer who pretentiously claims to be 'the only Professor in the Midland Counties who holds a Diploma from the British Scientific Association' (an allusion to the British Association for the Advancement of Science). Regards the seventh card, which appears to be an astrological 'prediction of the fortune of a young lady of rank', as 'rubbish and vulgarity'. Laments the fact that people 'are actually found to pay' for astrological forecasting and links this to low educational standards.