I have now been at Willesden Junction for eighteen hours, and I have not yet secured a train for Chalk Farm. There have been several, but they have always gone from the platform which I had just left. So I have camped out on the 101th platform, and I intend to stop there till a train for Chalk Farm comes in. Of course the porters have remonstrated, and tried to explain where and when the train really does start. But I would sooner trust my natural instincts than any porter. That bright little boy has been twice to see how I am getting on. He brought two other boys last time. They all told me to stick to it, and seemed much amused—probably at the stupidity of those porters. But really, Mr. Punch, Willesden Junction ought to be simplified. It may be all very well for me, with a phrenological aptitude for this sort of thing; but these different levels, platforms, and stairs must be very puzzling to less gifted people, such as the green young man from the country.
But the last suggestion which I have to make is the most important. There ought to be a great many more doors into the refreshment-room, and only one door out of it. I lost the thirteenth train for Chalk Farm by going out of the wrong door. One door out would be ample, and it should certainly be made—by an easy arrangement of pivots and pneumatic pressure—to open straight into the train for anywhere where you wanted to go. If this simple alteration cannot be made, Willesden Junction must be destroyed at once, route and branch; or removed to Hampton Court, to take the place of the present absurdly easy Maze. I am, Mr. Punch,
Your humble and obedient Servant,
Phrenitic.
UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE.
(New "Physical Examination" Style.)
Oxford, April 1, 1890.
The Regius Professor of High Jumping will commence his Course of Lectures, accompanied, in the way of illustration, by a practical exhibition of several physical tours de force on the spare ground at the back of the Parks, at some hour before 12 o'clock this morning. Candidates for honours in Hurdle Racing, Dancing, and Throwing the Hammer, are requested to leave their names at the Professor of Anthropometry's, at his residence, in the new Athletic Schools, on or before the 3rd inst. The subject selected for the next Term's Prize Physical Essay Composition, which will have on the reading to be practically and personally illustrated by several feats of the successful candidate himself, will be "Leap Year."