Geographical Jerks.

Many otherwise normal citizens pursue their awful occasions day by day, harbouring in their head-pieces an imaginary world calculated to cause the Geographical Society to doubt their own allegations about the Alleghanys and the number of sips in the Mississippi; for the sit-sighter has it on the sight-setter in that he can improvise his own geographs and sail the seas guided only by his temperature chart. He can alter the face of Nature at will, and practice plastic splur-gery on the scenery of the sphare. Should he opine that New York is too new, Old Madrid too old, Little Tichbury too little, Upper Lowbury too uppish, Lower Highbury too lowering, Siam, Yukatan, Rotterdam, Anagram and Astrachan too amorous, he may, by mental disorder in council, rearrange the panoramic “props” to suit the mood of the moment. He may even create new lands, such as Switzer-dam, Amsterwitz, New Zealephant, Muscatelaphone, or even Australastic—by stretching a point. He may insert icefloes in Florida, the Taj Mahal in Chicago (if America has not already bought it), rubber trees in Tyre, the kangaroo in Kalamazoo, Cleopatra's Needle in Stitchbury, and Uncle Tom's cabin on the shores of the Black Sea. He may place Mount Egmont on the Hen and Chickens, the Island of Dogs off the coast of Yap, the childblain in Chile, the hot dog in Houndsditch, the cold shoulder in Freising, the frozen asset in Otago, the elephant in Tuscany, the wild cat in Wall Street, and the wild oat in Mayfair. He can put the bridge of size in Sydney. Niagara Falls wherever it's dropped, mustard gas in the Sandwich Islands, pawns in the Solomons, nit-wits in the Scilly Isles, cuttle fish in Kut, and loans in London. He may sail down the Hoogly on a wapiti, or up the Indus on a cafateria. page 14 There are no limitations to the scintillations of his wanderlustre. The world is his onion, and he peels it without tears.