Genre:

Serial—Introduction, Drollery; Diary, Spoof

Subjects:

Steamships, Telegraphy, Engineers, Electricity,

    Begins by explaining that Mr Punch's representative has been invited to travel on the Great Eastern and 'go out with the wire [submarine telegraph]', and that Punch has arranged for messages to be received 'until the work shall be completed'. Mr Punch's representative offers a series of droll diary entries, including such observations as that 'the electricians are brilliant sparks' and the sermon he has sent through the wires was an 'Electrifying discourse'. Later explains how he 'took great pains to understand the nature of the telegraph' and received a decidedly confused scientific account from an Irish-sounding 'literary gentleman', a person who notes the abstruse 'astronomical process' for calculating the speed of the ship. Concludes by observing how a pig on board was cooked on contact with 'the galvanic machine' and distinguishes between the ship's captain, James Anderson, and the 'Wizard of the North', John H Anderson.