Genre:

Regular Feature, Reportage, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

[Trident], pseud.  [Henry R Howard] *

Subjects:

Animal Development, Zoology, Zoological Gardens, Politics, Government, Lecturing, Education, Astronomy

    The initial letter is formed by two large pythons together with a crocodile standing on its hind legs. One of the pythons is seen curling itself around an egg, a reference to the large number of eggs recently produced by the python at the Zoological Society Gardens. The article opens with a report on the introduction by Richard Bethell (1st Baron Westbury) of the Conveyancing Reform Bill into Parliament, in which Punch notes how Westbury explained himself 'in the broad fashion in which Professor Faraday lectures the Juveniles in Albermarle Street' (i.e. at the Royal Institution). Also considers Westbury's belief that Britain's greatest lawyers had little knowledge of feoffment to be as unreasonable as supposing that because Faraday told his juvenile audience that the earth is round 'he does not know that its is flattened at the poles'. (82) Later, responds to news that the government will 'take up' a 'Bill for suppressing the Fraudulent Imitation of Trade-Marks' by urging it to 'be an Egg which the Pythoness of Parliament will not Addle'. Returns to the python theme by supporting George Grey's argument against amending the 'Cab Laws' and relating the author's observation of the 'delicate attention' given by cabmen to their 'lady employers' who had visited the python. (83)