Genre:

Extract, Reportage; Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Railways, Amusement, Engineering, Manufactories, Nationalism, Imperialism

    Responds to two items of news: the winning of the Epsom Derby by Frédéric, comte de Lagrange's horse, Gladiateur, and the victory of Joseph E Schneider's firm over 'seven English' engineers in the competition for 'Steam Locomotives from the Great Eastern Railway'. Believes that the first item will 'raise the British sportsman's moan': 'Gladiators [...] Will make inferior prowess yield, / Alike in man and horse', and 'Britannia still would hold her own'. However, the second news item suggests that when the 'British iron-horse / before the French turns tail, / When England yields to France, perforce, / The Empire of the rail [...] Then may Britannia doff the crown [...] and sit a slave / Imprisoned in French irons'.