How we did laugh at the family pippin!
GARDENS WITHOUT A WATERPOT.
A well-founded objection has been raised against the Zoological Gardens; one objection: and that the only one that we can think of. It is complained, with truth, that no proper liquor is provided for the children to drink there. Ginger-beer, soda-water, and lemonade are not fit for children at all times, if they are fit at any, and cherry-brandy is good for nobody; not even for the young ladies who alone drink it; for it neither quenches thirst, nor causes hilarity: which are the sole valid reasons for drinking anything whatever, except physic. It appears that the only juvenile taps in the Gardens are those which supply water to the gardeners. If these afforded the pure element, it would be all very well; but their contents are much more suitable for the nourishment of plants than for the refreshment of little boys and girls. Numerous and interesting as are the varieties of the animal creation contained in these Gardens, the collection does not include that useful individual of the mammalia, the common cow, to produce a drop of milk for the little ones.
Even if children could drink soda-water and cherry-brandy, it would be, for many a father of a family which he takes to the Zoological Gardens for a holiday, much too heavy a disbursement to treat his progeny with soda-waters and cherry-brandies all round. If the Society cannot manage to add an ordinary milch cow to their quadrupeds, they might, at least, establish the cow with an iron tail. They have evinced great solicitude for the comforts of all the specimens of the inferior orders of animals on their grounds; and doubtless, now that their attention has been directed to the subject, they will make the requisite provision for a very pressing want experienced by the young of the genus Homo. With such a fact before them as the Camp at Chobham, they would indeed be inexcusable if they were not immediately to rectify a glaring deficiency in their Commissariat for the Infantry.
Meat for Mawworms.
The gin-shop keepers and Sabbatarians ought to get up a petition to the Queen, praying Her Majesty to remove Sir William Molesworth from her councils, because the Right Hon. Baronet has directed the Royal Pleasure Grounds at Kew, and the Royal Botanic Gardens also, to be opened on Sundays; which must cause a shocking desecration of Sunday to be committed in the enjoyment of flowers and fresh air, accompanied by an equally awful decrease in the consumption of "Cream of the Valley."