1843 44 PUTRID PENGUIN AND TOBACCO 
241 
sion, announcing in a whisper — a Frenchwoman ! 
So I had Madame Power instead of Goethe, and 
heard again the whole history of Argonauts and 
all the concomitant misfortunes, to which I sub- 
mitted with great patience, finishing in the intervals 
of explanations my herring and toast. . . . They 
are painting — overhead — the ceiling of the library, 
having done the same to the large room, and the 
house is redolent ! However, I fight against it 
with counterblasts of putrid penguin ® and tobacco.’ 
As Commissioner of the health of towns, 
&c., Owen was deputed to report on the state 
of his native town, Lancaster. While there in 
September, ‘ busily occupied ’ with his survey of 
the town, he writes to Clift on the 28th : — 
‘ . . . Chadwick dined with us last Monday, 
and we settled the plan of survey of the state of 
the town, in which I have been busily occupied. 
With the hearty co-operation of all the most intelli- 
gent medical men and builders. I found only the 
present Superintendent of Sewers rather stiff; he 
a stout man with goggle eyes, and had a beard 
three days growth. I give you a specimen of 
t^ne of his answers. To a query why they had not 
adopted the oval form of sewer, which had been 
nrrnerly made in one street, but not in later-made 
®nwers, which had the old square shape, he said, 
never adopt nought ” ’ ! 
^ On the Morbid Appear- of the Penguin ’ {Aptenodytes 
observed in the Dissection forsteri). Proc. Zool. Soc. 
VOL. I. 
R 
