FACTS FOR FOREIGNERS.
Some people may have smiled at the following announcement, which was inserted in the Times of not many days ago. More thinking minds, however, will probably agree with us, that the statement should elicit commendation more that laughter, as it tends to show how England is made much more than laughter, as it tends to show how England is made much of on the Continent, and how foreign writers try to magnify her might:-
“Those English! – Some of the German journals announce seriously that a Company of English capitalists have made an application to the King of Naples for a concession for the extinction of Vesuvius. The principal seat of the fire of that volcano is situated several thousand feet below the level of the sea. By cutting a canal which would carry the water into the crator, the fire would be completely extinguished, and the operation, which would only cost 2,000,000f., would restore to cultivation land of ten times that value.”
As a pendant to this story we are authorised to state, that there are several new Companies now forming in this county, by which our surplus money will be usefully employed, and highly profitable work be found for those who want it. Among the projects now in prospect we may mention the few following, which will instance what grand schemes have of late been started in the city, for the purpose of employing our few millions of spare cash:-
The first that may be noticed is a Company established to set the Thames on fire, and by this means to deodorise and render it salubrious. A second purpose of this project is, by means of the caloric which thus will be engendered, to keep up a supply of hot air in cold weather, whereby the streets of London will be always kept well warmed, and those who walk in them will save the cost of wearing a great coat.
Another Company is now in progress of formation for the purpose of importing the summit of Mont Blanc; which, after being carried round the country as a peepshow, will be put up in Hyde Park as a practice-ground for tourists.
A third project has been started to employ our idle capital in bringing all the gold-fields bodily to England, so as to save the cost of working them so far away from home. By avoiding the expense of the export of machinery, and the higher price for labour which is paid abroad than here, it is reckoned that, at quite a moderate calculation, the profits of their project will be fully cent. per cent.
The next scheme to be noticed is a plan by which the Sun will be induced to shine at night; so that the public will be able to dispense with burning gas, and need no longer make complaints about monopolising companies who supply it of low quality at rather a high price.
Besides a plan just set on foot for making champagne out of cucumbers, a scheme has been devised for procuring the extraction of pea-soup from London fog. When the foreigner remembers that our fogs are now so frequent that the clear blue sky in England is never clearly seen, he may form a faint conception of the work which is cut out for this new Company of Soup-makers. The for will daily furnish a lot of raw material, which English ingenuity will soon cook into soup.
Another paying speculation is that which has been started for importing the Great Pyramid, for which purpose (it is known) we have been building our Big Ship. It is stated that the stones of which the pyramid is made will fetch ten millions sterling as ballast for our fleets, for which pacific purpose all the paving-stones in England have been long ago grubbed up. The myriads of mummies which the pyramid contains will of course fetch a high price among our farmers for manure: while the mummy-wheat alone will pay the whole cost of importing, for every one has heard how prolific it has proved, and there cannot be a grain less than a million billion bushels of it to be unearthed.
Our foreign friends moreover should know, that some half-dozen of our great West-end capitalists have subscribed among themselves eleven millions of loose cash, form excavating bodily the biggest of the glaciers, and placing it en masse in Mr. Gunter’s ice-house. How many sherry-coblers will be made from its contents, we leave the schoolmasters abroad, if they live long enough, to calculate.
We may state too for a fact, that shares are now in course of issue for a Company whose work will be to dig up some few square miles of the Sandwich Islands, and to import for home consumption the richest of their strata, which are composed of bread and butter with alternate ham and beef. By way too of providing liquefaction for thee viands, another project has been thought of for digging up and shipping some few dozen of the Geysers, which when mixed with British brandy will afford the best of grog.
But perhaps the most surprising proof of English enterprise is the fact that application has been made to the Americans for concession of Niagara for sake of importation. The torrent when brought over will be made a “water privilege,” and its vast power will be used to work the printing-press for Punch!
To these examples of our energy and speculative spirit we could, if we had space, add many dozens more. We have said enough, however, to convince the German journalists that the scheme which they assign to us falls far short of the truth: and as they have already been stretching their credulity, if they swallow their own stories, they may easily bolt ours. It is not wise to underrate the power of an enemy, and we think our foreign friends will be the less apt to attack us, the more they are convinced of our gigantic strength.
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