Genre:

Regular Feature, Proceedings, Drollery

Subjects:

Museums, Comparative Philology, Zoology, Display, Politics, Government

    Reports the parliamentary debate on the British Museum, in which Spencer H Walpole observed that the public would not be able to see various new acquisitions 'until those beasts and birds shall be taken away'. Adds: 'While we can see four beautiful giraffes and two hippopotamuses alive, it is too absurd to fling lovely Greek marbles into a cellar, to leave room for that dusty splitting old straddler of a camelopard, and the wooden-looking river-horse at the Museum'.