Punch,  42 (1862), 134.

Merry and Dreary England

Smelfungus

Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Environmentalism, Ecology, Pollution, Manufactories, Industry, Animal Behaviour, Human Development, Descent, Evolution, Race, Extinction


    Responding to a newspaper report on the proposed enclosure of waste lands, laments the possibility that this will destroy most of England's heather, gorse, forest, swamp, and snipe-bog, and cause the 'face of the earth' to be covered with 'smoky factories and still worse nuisances', and agricultural produce. Criticises the fact that this will also destroy the sources of 'spiritual refreshment' and poetry. Condemns those who worship chimneys and their stomachs as 'incipient brutes' who will 'ultimately descend nearly to a level with the beasts [...] of the stye', and thus develop a 'countenance resembling the Chinese'. Concludes by attacking the proposal for a 'more numerous population' on the grounds that it 'makes the atmosphere sultry', a condition to which polluted air and rivers contribute.



© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020

Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]