‘The President highly complimented the learned gentleman on his most valuable suggestion, which produced the greatest effect upon the assembly; and remarked that only a week previous he had seen some young gentlemen at a theatre eyeing a box of ladies with a fierce intensity, which nothing but the influence of some brutish appetite could possibly explain. It was dreadful to reflect that our youth were so rapidly verging into a generation of bears.
‘After a scene of scientific enthusiasm it was resolved that this important question should be immediately submitted to the consideration of the council.
‘The President wished to know whether any gentleman could inform the section what had become of the dancing-dogs?
‘A Member replied, after some hesitation, that on the day after three glee-singers had been committed to prison as criminals by a late most zealous police-magistrate of the metropolis, the dogs had abandoned their professional duties, and dispersed themselves in different quarters of the town to gain a livelihood by less dangerous means. He was given to understand that since that period they had supported themselves by lying in wait for and robbing blind men’s poodles.
‘Mr. Flummery exhibited a twig, claiming to be a veritable branch of that noble tree known to naturalists as the Shakspeare, which has taken root in every land and climate, and gathered under the shade of its broad green boughs the great family of mankind. The learned gentleman remarked that the twig had been undoubtedly called by other names in its time; but that it had been pointed out to him by an old lady in Warwickshire, where the great tree had grown, as a shoot of the genuine Shakspeare, by which name he begged to introduce it to his countrymen.
‘The President wished to know what botanical definition the honourable gentleman could afford of the curiosity.
‘Mr. Flummery expressed his opinion that it was a decided plant.
‘SECTION B.—DISPLAY OF MODELS AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE.
LARGE ROOM, BOOT-JACK AND COUNTENANCE.
President—Mr. Mallett. Vice-Presidents—Messrs. Leaver and Scroo.
‘Mr. Crinkles exhibited a most beautiful and delicate machine, of little larger size than an ordinary snuff-box, manufactured entirely by himself, and composed exclusively of steel, by the aid of which more pockets could be picked in one hour than by the present slow and tedious process in four-and-twenty. The inventor remarked that it had been put into active operation in Fleet Street, the Strand, and other thoroughfares, and had never been once known to fail.