Genre:

Drama, Spoof

Subjects:

Invention, Government, Engineers, Military Technology, Steam-power, Electricity

    The first act opens in a waiting room of a 'Public Office' near Whitehall in which sit several people including a 'Man with a Grievance', who is still waiting for 'compensation or parliamentary enquiry', and 'a Monomaniacal Inventor, with a universally unacknowledged substitute for the steam engine', who hopes Mr Buffer will listen to his claims for a 'galvanic propeller'. Later a 'Gaunt Stranger' from America appears and seeks to offer to 'the old Country' his 'American Breech-loading Carbine', which he proceeds to explain in great detail. (107)