Broadside entitled 'Found'

Transcription

FOUND.

The public are informed that a telegram was received this morning,
at three o'clock in the afternoon, by a friend of the

YOUNG   MAN

who has been long missing from the neighbourhood of the High Street,
stating that he has been found by the City Police of a rural district
called Old Manconium, which is situated at the foot of the Underground
Mountains, on the south side of the Equator, and near to the North Pole.

It appears that he left the town on the 3rd of next month by means
of a fast train on the underground railway that commences at Boggart
Hoile Clough, and which is known only to a few of a certain class. He
was directed to it by a tall, black man, dressed in the height of fashion,
whose uniform bore on the right arm the following device : ?A Cloven
Foot surmounted by a Pitchfork and a pair of Horns. On arriving at
the station he found all the porters, guards, &c., wore the same uniform,
and bore the same device as his conductor, and learned that the Company
was called the Pandemonium Line. When the train started! he was
surprised at the speed at which they travelled, finding next morning
he was 4000 miles on his journey, and they went through the Suez
Canal at a fearful rate. On arriving at the Mount Cenis Tunnel he
had to take a screw steamer, which, when only half-way through, the
tunnel, drew so much water that she began to sink; to lighten her a
few thousand Communists were thrown overboard, who are supposed
to be the same that have caused the hubbub in Paris. In passing
through the scene of Dr Livingstone's explorations he met with that
celebrated traveller, who was glad to see him, and entertained him for
several days, promising to be home to tea on the 34th of July next,
after Tib's Eve. Bidding good-bye to the doctor, he arrived at Ice
Bergs, in the vicinity of the North Pole, where the intence cold melted
his cast-iron trimmings. To sustain life in this region he was obliged
to shoot large numbers of white bears, melt them on icebergs, eat of
their flesh, and drink their oil in quarts. This food not agreeing with
him, he was obliged to eat the sausage stripes from his trousers, the
mutton cutlets from his waistcoat, also the tripe collar that adorned
his double-barrelled coat.

In the months he was absent he found that he had lost in weight,
of flesh, no less than 74 inches avordupois round the calve of his legs ;
and, on referring to a looking-glass, he found his tall complexion was
much altered?his face being tatooed with the bites of mosquitoes (which
were very numerous, in consequence of the intense cold) ; and his nose
the colour of a red-hot poker through drinking so much foreign London
gin, which is distilled by the natives of that country in immense
quantities.

It is made from the gills of pickled gorillas, wild porcupines, and
other insects which abound in that quarter.            

He declared before the Magistrates that he was a true Briton, and
ho would fast all the days of Lent before he would eat their vile and
horrid stuff.

It was surprising how he could fast every day, from 12 o'clock at
night till 8 in the morning, without eating anything at all.

P.S.?His relations are hereby informed that he is now well treated,
boarded, and lodged, and that he will be delivered safely to them on
payment of the unnecessary expenses ; the said expenses being incurred
by the printing of bills, and by his rending and destroying every one
of the twenty straight jackets, with which he has been accommodated
during his imprisonment.

L. Macartney, The Poet's Box, 184 Overgate, Dundee.

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