Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Scientific Practitioners, Astrology, Charlatanry, Societies, Military Technology, Invention

    Written from the perspective of a woman of limited literary ability, who begins by declaring her scepticism towards 'philosifers and men of science', notably 'Zadkiel Tao Tsze', whom she has often found to be a 'deceiver'. Denying faith in almanacs, and the prophecies of John Cumming, she praises William G Armstrong, whose 'gun pertects the British nation' and is fitting for the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which he is president. She then discusses Armstrong's address to the association (a version of which was published as Armstrong 1864), sharing his fears that coal supplies are in danger of running out, pointing to such sources of consumption as 'gash burnt all night long, and constant steam on land and ocean', and 'the sluts'—servant girls—who waste coal when cooking.