The COMIC ALMANACK For 1846. (continued 2)
Reading edition
The night before the close of the Midsummer holidays an immense number of little boys and girls will be attacked with alarming signs of indisposition, but on being kept at home will rapidly recover.
The blocks of Wenham ice in the Strand shop-window will melt very quickly—the only American affair that looks at all clear, or is liquidated spontaneously, or (as sherry cobbler) worth a straw.
Very Alarming Railway Accident.—An engine getting off the line, 137will carry the train through a gentleman's country house, where he is entertaining some friends.

AUGUST.
The Queen, en voyage, accompanied by Prince Albert, will pay a visit to Calcutta, by the overland route, and come home by St. Petersburgh; starting, immediately on her return, for Ireland, and thence to New York: the whole being accomplished within the month. Great confusion in the houses of the nobility she unexpectedly looks in upon—begging of extra servants, borrowing of plate, and stealing of evergreens. The illustrated papers for the week contain their thirty engravings as usual, and they are all triumphal arches.
Several shooting stars will be visible in the northern district about the twelfth. Sultry weather: and the Wenham Lake ice has all melted. Ne sutor ultra crepidam—no more sherry cobbler after the last.
M. Jullien will give a Concert Monstre, and introduce his Leviathan Ophicleide, prepared for the country festivals, and containing living, cooking, and sleeping conveniences for his entire orchestra.
Horrible Railway Accident.—An express train will leap over the wall of a viaduct, when those who expected to "go down" by it will not be disappointed.
SEPTEMBER
The Annual Blockade, or Great Plague of London, by the Commissioners of Sewers and Improvements, will take place this month. The nearest way from St. Paul's to Temple Bar will be through Farringdon Street, Smithfield, across Gray's Inn Lane, Theobald's Road (Holborn is also closed), Red Lion Square, Queen Street, and Drury Lane. Endless rows with cabmen in consequence, who object to eightpence for the distance. General emigration of the British, who will be found everywhere, in the language of the month, in large coveys, strong on the wing, and offering excellent sport to foreigners. It is probable that the last man about town will commit suicide in the centre of Leicester Square; to explore which hitherto unknown locality an expedition will be fitted out, now that the new street has opened a facility of communication with the interior.
The stars portend the ultimate death of Bartholomew Fair, Esquire, after 138several years of wasting decline, the result of injuries received some time ago from the corporation of London. He will lie in state in Smithfield for three days, on a handsome bier of gilt gingerbread, and under a canopy of show-canvas, with incense burning round him from altars of sausage-stoves. The Black Wild Indian, the Fair Circassian, the Yorkshire Giant, the Welsh Dwarf, the Fat Boy, the Living Skeleton, and the Ghost from Richardson's, will in turn act as mourners.
Annoying Railway Accident.—The train will break down in the middle of a two-mile tunnel, and will not be discovered until pushed out by the next.
OCTOBER.
Several fires will break out in and about London, but, as they will be principally confined to their proper places, no ill-effects will happen, except in the cases where the servants will neglect to open the chimney-boards, and emancipate the blacks. About this period we may look for the reappearance of several muffs and boas from their summer hiding-places.
Rain may be expected about the 4th, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 30th of this month. I say it may be expected, but this does not follow that it will come. If it does not, it will fall at some other time, or probably not at all; but the reader may rely upon one or the other of these meteorological phenomena taking place.
A Singular Railway Accident will happen from using two engines, one before and the other behind; which, not acting together, will crumple the train up between them, like the back of an insulted cat. The tender will vindicate its claim to its title by being crushed to pieces.
NOVEMBER.
A dense fog—an English festival of "St. Cloud"—will visit the metropolis; during the continuance of which several blunders will be made by the Londoners which would not otherwise have occurred. A celebrated literary hydropathist will be mistaken for a pump of hard water, until he is run against and found to be soft. The Penitentiary will be taken for a poor-law union; the National Gallery for a railway station; and St Paul's and Westminster Abbey for two religious peep-shows: but Covent Garden Theatre will not be taken for anything by anybody.
Ludicrous Railway Accident.—The fastenings of a carriage will come undone and the train will speed on to the terminus, whilst the travellers behind are left half-way in the midst of a flooded cutting.
DECEMBER.
The Young England party will be decidedly in the ascendant at the commencement of the holidays; and materially affect "the social condition of the people" in the house.
Popular lectures on "cold," at the Polytechnic Institution, when the Professor will have the subject at his fingers' ends. Dr. Ryan, having frozen water in a red-hot crucible, will next make a piece of ice red-hot without melting it, by reversing the process.
The march of intellect will be found to have altered all the old Christmas objects of revelry. The yule log will be supplanted by an Arnott's stove; the homely carol, by an Italian scena, which the singer does not understand; the wassail bowl, by British brandy, or perhaps something better; and the mummers, by the far more dangerous false masks and manners of society, as at present constituted.
Tremendous Railway Accident.—Four trains will meet at a cross junction line exactly at the same time. Every precaution will be taken to avoid danger, as soon as the accident has occurred.
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