PUNCH’S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE.—NO. 1.
BEING A VERY FAMILIAR TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY.
Our opinion is, that science cannot be too familiarly dealt with; and though too much familiarity certainly breeds contempt, we are only following the fashion of the day, in rendering science somewhat contemptible, by the strange liberties that publishers of Penny Cyclopædias, three-halfpenny Informations, and twopenny Stores of Knowledge, are prone to take with it.
In order to show that we intend going at high game, we shall begin with the stars; and if we do not succeed in levelling the heavens to the very meanest capacity—even to that of
AN INFANT IN ARMS—
we shall at once give up all claims to the title of an enlightener of the people.
Every body knows there are planets in the air, which are called the planetary system. Every one knows our globe goes upon its axis, and has two poles, but what is the axis, and what the poles are made of—whether of wood, or any other material—are matters which, as far as the mass are concerned, are involved in the greatest possible obscurity.
The north pole is chiefly remarkable for no one having ever succeeded in reaching it, though there seems to have been a regular communication to it by post in the time of Pope, whose lines—
“Speed the soft intercourse from zone to zone.