Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Exhibitions, Education, Palaeontology, Zoology, Ethnology, Aesthetics

    Notes the fulfilment of the late Punch contributor and entertainer Albert R Smith's prophecy of a swift decline in the cultural pretensions of the entertainments at the Crystal Palace. Stresses how supporters of the original scheme dreamed of attracting 'John Bull / By Saurians displayed in action' and drawing 'the town, / By their condensed zoo- and ethnology, / Savages set in buff and brown, / High art, and miniature geology'.