Genre:

Announcement, Spoof; Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Museums, Government, Natural History, Reading, Textbooks, Periodicals

    Noting that while Anthony Panizzi has not been able to remove the beasts from the British Museum (a measure included in the government's recently defeated British Museum Bill), he has ordered boys to leave the museum and stop 'lounging on the Museum chairs for which a Darwin, a Buckle, a Faraday, a Maurice or a Punch may be waiting'. Advises Panizzi to 'clear away a whole heap of people' who have no business in the library because, according to Mr Punch's survey, they only read relatively inexpensive books that are readily available elsewhere. (220) His survey reveals that these works include Timbs 1857, volumes of the Mirror of Literature, La Belle Assemblée, Livingstone 1857, and Burton 1621. Mr Punch concludes that these readers, 'for whose sake the world is ransacked year by year to bring literary treasures together', should read at home (221).