TO THE EDITOR
Of any Paper that inserts Gratuitous Advertisements.
SIR,—Kindly contradict the rumour, which I find is widely spread and appears to be credited in some quarters, that an extensive sewage farm has been established in front of the most fashionable terrace in Slushborough-on-Sea, and that a Smallpox Hospital is about to be built upon the Pier. "Salubrious Slushborough" still continues (in spite of the machinations of jealous Northbourne) to be the most select, popular, and healthy resort on the British coasts.
Yours disinterestedly, THE MAYOR OF SLUSHBOROUGH.
SIR,—A report (proceeding, I have reason, to believe, from ill-conditioned residents at Slushborough) is being disseminated to the effect, that the water-supply of Northbourne is largely tainted with typhus and diphtheria germs, and that an epidemic is already ravaging this place. As a matter of fact, the only case of illness of any kind in this town at present is a patient brought over from Slushborough in the last stage of blood-poisoning, owing to the defective drainage system there, and who, in this salubrious and invigorating atmosphere, is now rapidly recovering.
I remain, Yours &c., THE MAYOR OF NORTHBOURNE.
SIR,—In view of the correspondence with regard to the present condition of our popular seaside resorts, it will, I feel sure, interest your readers to learn that an examination of the air of Whitecliffe lately made by a local analyst, reveals the fact that it contains fifty-five per cent. more ozone than is to be found on the top of Mont Blanc! I publish this piece of intelligence purely in the interests of science, and as I am writing I may perhaps take the opportunity to mention that apartments here are both good and reasonable, and the bathing first-rate. The same analyst incidentally discovered that the air at Chorkstone is largely laden with poisonous bacteria.
Yours truly, THE MAYOR OF WHITECLIFFE.
SIR,—At this time of year, when our glorious Lees are in the full radiance of their summer beauty, it becomes a mere act of Christian duty to warn intending holiday-makers to avoid Whitecliffe, and to select Chorkstone as their place of sojourn instead. An eminent local medical man asserts that morbiferous germs exist to a very dangerous degree in the Whitecliffe atmosphere, and that the Whitecliffe water is rendered almost solid by the multitude of bacilli it contains. Another Chorkstone resident, who lately visited Whitecliffe, found the air so relaxing that he fainted away, and had it not been for the kindness of the landlord of a certain hotel, who had him carried out of his bar and driven off in a trap to his own home, he believes he would have succumbed! Comment is needless.
Yours impartially, THE MAYOR OF CHORKSTONE.
SIR,—There is not the slightest foundation for the ridiculous canard as to the inhabitants of this picturesque and abnormally fashionable town being "in a state of complete panic, owing to the fact that all the convicts recently confined at Shortland have broken out, and are indulging in frightful excesses in the neighbourhood." The convicts have not broken out; but an epidemic of gratuitous mendacity has done so, it appears.
Yours indignantly, THE MAYOR OF CURDSMOUTH.
P.S.—Have you heard about the sanitary state of Shutmouth? Shocking!
SIR,—As I hear that it is rumoured that M. PASTEUR has discovered an entirely new and most dangerous kind of bacillus in the neighbourhood of pine-trees, perhaps I may mention, in order to reassure our myriads of intending summer visitors, that the death-rate at this town is one in ten thousand, and that we should have had no death-rate at all last week, if the one person referred to had not met with an unfortunate accident. All the Shutmouth doctors are starving.
Yours, THE MAYOR OF SHUTMOUTH.
P.S.—Ought not something to be done to check the mortality at Curdsmouth? It is disgraceful!