Punch (95.1888)

iv PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 29, 1888.

attributes and most exclusive prerogatives. Space she has practically annihilated ; and now she is having a turn at You !
Time was when what was past ivas past, when what Edax Rerum had once devoured knew no resurrection. But now ?
Well, when Science can thus make the vanished Voices of the Past actually audible Voices of the Present, then, in the words
of the Hibernian Magistrate in " Killaloe "—

" Ye never know what she '11 be up to next."

Already she has beateu Munchausen on his own ground. Frozen words made audible by thaw ? Pooh! What is that
1 compared with the awe-striking possibility of the ipsissiina verba of eloquent Gladstone, or honey-tongued Leighton, or
ventriloquial Ibving, being ground out of this instrument, for the edification, or Edisouification, of dwellers in the tail-end of
the Twentieth Century!

Toby {fortissimo). Bow-wow-wo-o-o-o-w !!!

Father Time (anxiously). What's the matter with that dog ? He —he—seems to be asleep, and yet-

Mr. Punch (laughing). Don't alarm yourself, Kronos. Toby is asleep, so soundly, that even his own bark—of the day

before yesterday—does not awaken him !

Father Time (with awe). What, do you mean to say it was that inf-that extraordinary instrument of Edison's

that was yelping like that ?

Mr. Punch. Precisely! Toby barked into it for mo a day or two since. His wax-recorded yelp may be useful to
frighten burglars in the year 1989. Had Anubis doue ditto several thousand years ago, we could now compare his yaps with
those of the modern Dog of Dogs.

Father Time. Here, I say, don't! It's really uncanny, and, as you suggest, knocks my traditional prerogatives into
a cocked hat!

Mr. Punch. Never mind ! After all, 'tis Vox et prmlerca nihil. American Scientists arc as impotent as were Egyptian
i mummy-makers or the Embalmcrs of Kor, really to bring back the Past or to perpetuate the Present. And the Future is
I Ours—as Mr. Gladstone says of the Liberal Party.

Father Tunc. Quite so. You may find the phonograph useful, to record for the benefit of remotest posterity your
words of wisdom and scintillations of wit; eh, Mr. Punch ?

II/?-. Punch. My dear Kronos, do you not see that, practically, I am as independent of this remarkable and really
interesting instrument as you are of an improved egg-boiler or patent lawn-mower? I am perennial, and have a Phonograph
■—or Funnigraph—of my own, invented long before the days of Edison.
Father Time. Indeed ! I should so like to see it.

Mr. Punch. You shall, dear Edax. Indeed you shall take it with you, if you like. It will amuse and instruct you on
your lonely round between now and next New Year's Day,—when I hope to see you here again. You will find therein echoes
of the most valuable Voices of the Past, the best and brightest utterance of the Voice of the Present, and not a few vocal and
vaticinatory " clips into the Future ! " Oh, don't be alarmed ; it is not a cumbersome and complicated bit of mechauism, like
this of Edison's. It is compact and portable. Tuck it under your arm, Father Time ; it won't interfere with the comfortable
carrying of your scythe and hour-glass, I assure you. For Mr. Punch's original, ingenious, unsurpassable Patent Funni-
graph is his

Ipnetg-Jiftlj Munte!