Punch: Punch (60.1871)

52

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. (February 4, 1871.

RUSKIN'S REMEDY FOR INUNDATION.

Y dear John, —Let's
begin at the be-
ginning. First
catch your oracle.
I have caught
two — you and
Thomas' Carlyle
— and I feel I
ought to be thank-
ful. I consult you
alternately, and
go by the answers.
But the worst of
it is no oracle,
since the Pythian,
is good for all
questions. Even
it wasn't always
clear. You are
always clear, you will say, but then are j*ou always right ? On
Old Painters and Modern, Art and Nature, Clouds and Trees, Moun-
tains and Minerals, Ethics of the Dust and Glories of the Sky,
Crowns of Wild Olive, and Cestuses of Aglaia, and Sesamum and
Lilies, and Lamps of Architecture, and Stones of Venice, you may
be. Some of my friends tell me you are ; others tell me you are
quite the reverse. Butat least all you say on these matters reads
very mystical and musical, and sounds uncommonly like an oracle ;
and if I can't always understand, I can always shut my eyes, and
open my ears and swallow what Rttskin sends me.

But then you have lately insisted on starting an oracle for Political
Economy. There, as a wretched Philistine, and low shop-keeping
scoundrel, I do seem to see a little daylight, only a little, I admit,
but, by what I can see, your oracles on that point are by no means
such as I can swallow. I can shut my eyes, and open my ears, but
I can't get down what you send me. In short when you come
" unto this last" I feel you've got beyond your last: and I take it
tie sutor is one of the best old work-a-day oracles ever delivered.

But let Political Economy pass. I said I saw a little daylight
there, but I admit there are a great many very nasty bits of thorny-
brake, and sour, quaking bog, in that wood, still, and anybody who
brings his axe, and helps to make a clearing is welcome. Only he
must come as woodman and workman, not as wiseacre and
oracle. The worst of Political Economy sums is that they have to be
worked with men's interests, principles, passions, and pockets for
factors, and these are very difficult counters to cipher with. You
can't prove your sums, as we used to have to do at school. But when
it comes to engineering, and you proceed to give oracles on that, I'm
down on you. "We are on safe and sure ground here among figures
and quantities, measures of length, liquid measures, and measures
of capacity. And I am afraid, when I bring my gauge to test your
measure of capacity as an engineering oracle, it don't " come out"
at all as it ought—for an oracle.

You have lately been teaching the Royal Institution how to
prevent inundations of the Tiber. It doesn't seem exactly our most
pressing business—but let that pass.

Here is your remedy in your own words.*

" Every mountain farm ought to have a dyke ahout two feet high—with a
small ditch within it—carried at intervals in regular, scarcely perceptible
incline, across its fields;—with discharge into a reservoir large enough to
contain a week's maximum rainfall on the area of that farm in the stormiest
weather—the higher uncultivated lands being guarded over larger spaces with
bolder embankments. No drop of water that had one touched hill ground
ought ever to reach the plains till it was wanted there : and the maintenance
of the bank and reservoir, once built, on any farm, would not cost more than
the keeping up of its cattle-sheds against chance of whirlwind and snow."

Now really, my dear Oracle! Do you know that rain has fallen
over London at the rate of four inches in the hour P That about
Pome, such falls may take place for several hours, and at not
distant intervals ? That thirty inches of rain in twenty-four hours
have been recorded at Geneva ?

Why how often have you yourself noted the effects of sudden
mountain storms in Switzerland and Italy: dry ravines turned
suddenly to torrents ; beds of gravel dragged over great slopes ;
huge boulders whisked about, like shuttlecocks under the battle-
dore, and large areas left as bare of soil as the back of my hand.

Where would your two-foot dykes and conduits and tanks be, in
a storm like that ?—As John Thomas would say, " gone to everlast-
ing smash."

Seriously, are you aware what an inch depth of rain means ?

It means 22,400 gallons, or one hundred tons, of water on every
square acre of land ; and supposing four inches to come down in an
hour, this means four hundred tons of water per hour per* acre. And

* See letter in Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 19.

you talk of tanking the maximum rainfall for a week ! Have you
considered that f or the gathering ground that feeds Father Tiber, this
would mean storing millions of tons, thousands of millions of gallons,
each gallon weighing ten pounds, and having destructive force in
proportion to volume, and the depth and declivity of ravine dis-
charging it ; that a farm of one hundred acres, to accommodate one
hour's rainfall only at the maximum London rate, would require a
tank one thousand feet long, one hundred wide, and ten deep, which,
make it as rudely and cheaply as you can, would cost many thousand
pounds ; while larger reservoirs in the higher mountain gorges would
swallow up hundreds of thousands of pounds, and then might be
filled to overflowing by the rains of one week !

My dear John, I don't advise you to go into the City with a
Roman Anti-Inundation Company; or, if you do, shirk the
arithmetical, and stick to the oracular.

The truth is, old Father Tiber is suffering, like other rivers, in
Italy and elsewhere, for want of having his bed made. He has had
pitched into that bed the solid rubbish and detritus of centuries ;
and I doubt if any JEdile, from the first on record to Me. Ayrton's
latest and stingiest contemporary, has ever so much as relieved the
poor old boy of a barrowful. Dredging and embanking in the right
places—by the advice of an engineer, not an oracle—may do some-
thing to keep the yellow old Father in bounds. But till he has had
his bed properly made, and his poor old sides comfortably padded
with cunningly placed embankment cushions, he ivill kick over his
banks occasionally, and small blame to him.

But, that J. R. his oracle won't help him, believe me, my dear
Reskin, on the assurance of your constant reader and warm extra-
oracular admirer, ^UNfi^.

TEMPTING ARTICLES.
The Times quotes the following pleasant paragraph:—

" Breakfast Delicacies.—According to the Chemist and Druggist, Ameri-
cans are manufacturing golden syrup with sulphuric acid and starch. It is
said to blacken the teeth, and chaw up the gizzard. From the same land of
innocence we read of currant jelly being made out of old boots."—British
Medical Journal.

This is bad enough, but there is worse to follow. The Chemist
and Druggist has not revealed half of what it might have disclosed.
We are reluctant to make those of our readers uncomfortable who
are particular about what they eat and drink, but private advices
from America speak of the following delicacies as being mamrfac-
tured in large quantities, both for home consumption and importation
into this and other epicurean countries.

Treacle from coal tar.

Anchovy paste and sauce from old fishing-tackle.

Cayenne from rusty tenpenny nails.

Preserved ginger from doormats.

Ketchup from old hats.

Isinglass from shirt-fronts.

Caviare from old Russia leather book bindings.

Sponge-cake from flannel garments.

Other novelties are in preparation, and will shortly be introduced
into the market.

AN AFFLICTED UNDERTAKER.

Undertakers do not, as a rule, possess much of Mr. Punches
affections, but let that pass. He is not going to _ compose a homily
against extortions, or vanities. Nor, of course, is he going to be
flippant on a topic that should repel flippancy. But he has to
announce a discovery. Needless to say that the Affliction usually
manifested by the undertaker is not supposed to be very genuine.
But Mr. Punch has lighted on an Afflicted Undertaker, a real one.
From a newspaper—one of the best and ablest of our provincial con-
temporaries—he has cut an advertisement. The advertiser cannot
get his money from the representatives of some lady whose funeral
he has performed. We have, of course, utterly altered all names.

mrs. jackson, deceased.
TAMES JONES, Funeral Undertaker, * * * * Street, * * * *, would
fJ feel obliged to the Friends or Representatives of the late Mrs. j/vckson
if they would inform him who are the proper parties to pay her Funeral
Expenses.

After a detailed description of the business, which appears to have
been conducted in "a very superior manner," the advertiser bursts
out with a mixture of sorrow and sarcasm, thus :—

" James Jones is not aware that he is in any way connected with the
Jackson Family so as to entitle him to bury her and not be paid."

There ! Have we said that the above appears in an Irish paper ?
Was it necessary ? Where but in Ireland could we expect to find
such an Anomaly as an Afflicted Undertaker? Mr. Disraeli s
Melancholy Ocean tig a wonder-worker, after all.