Far From Blaming It, I Think It Natural And
Commendable, That Nearly One Half Of The Inhabitants Of This Great
City Migrate Into The Country In Summer.
And into the country, I
too, though not a Londoner, hope soon to wander.
Electricity happens at present to be the puppet-show of the English.
Whoever at all understands electricity is sure of being noticed and
successful. This a certain Mr. Katterfelto experiences, who gives
himself out for a Prussian, speaks bad English, and understands
beside the usual electrical and philosophical experiments, some
legerdemain tricks, with which (at least according to the papers) he
sets the whole world in wonder. For in almost every newspaper that
appears, there are some verses on the great Katterfelto, which some
one or other of his hearers are said to have made extempore. Every
sensible person considers Katterfelto as a puppy, an ignoramus, a
braggadocio, and an impostor; notwithstanding which he has a number
of followers. He has demonstrated to the people, that the influenza
is occasioned by a small kind of insect, which poisons the air; and
a nostrum, which he pretends to have found out to prevent or destroy
it, is eagerly bought of him. A few days ago he put into the
papers: "It is true that Mr. Katterfelto has always wished for cold
and rainy weather, in order to destroy the pernicious insects in the
air; but now, on the contrary, he wishes for nothing more than for
fair weather, as his majesty and the whole royal family have
determined, the first fine day, to be eye-witnesses of the great
wonder, which this learned philosopher will render visible to them."
Yet all this while the royal family have not so much as even thought
of seeing the wonders of Mr. Katterfelto.
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