Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Astronomy, Observation, Measurement, Government, Patronage

    Notes the appropriateness of the fact that on Valentine's Day, Queen Victoria's 'gracious message to her loving Commons' instructed them to provide for the Venus transit expedition of 1874. Adds that besides the 'public grants' needed for the 'Captain Cooks, Sir Joseph Bankses, and Sir John Herschels to carry on', there will be the 'annual transit of Venus'—the passage of love-letters through the post.