is, though, certain—the number of people who will write, whether they have anything to say or not, increases every year, and in due course we may expect an ingenious Chancellor of the Exchequer to impose a tax on authors; which, after all, will hardly, so far as brilliancy is concerned, be so destructive as the window-tax, or so uncalled for as Mr Robert Lowe’s famous “ex luce lucellum” imposition. A couple of weeks later, in the same paper (January 18-20), is the following of a very different character from that which has been already selected:—
READING MACHINE
IS removed from the Three Kings, Piccadilly, to the George Inn, Snow Hill, London; sets out from the Broad Face, Reading, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at seven o’clock in the morning, and from the George Inn, Snow Hill, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, at seven o’clock in the morning; carries passengers to and from Reading at 6s. each, children in lap, and outside passengers at 3s.
Performed by
Thomas Moore and
Richard Mapleton.
N.B.—Takes no charge of Writings, Money, Watches, or Jewels, unless entered and paid for as such.
This machine was evidently a nondescript, partly slow coach, partly waggon, and was extremely reasonable in its rates if it journeyed at any pace, seeing that outside passengers paid no more than present Parliamentary rates, while the insides had no occasion to complain of excessive expenditure. But fancy the journey at seven o’clock on a January morning, with the knowledge that no brisk motion