After this experiment there was a lull in the Parachute folly until some twenty years ago, when Madame Poitevin startled the Metropolis from its propriety by her perilous escapes both in life and limb. Although considerable ingenuity was displayed in the plan of expanding the Parachute by the sudden discharge of gas from the balloon; still the very fact of a woman being exposed to such danger by her husband, will, we trust, hereafter prevent Englishmen from countenancing such an exhibition by their presence.
Who could for a moment suppose that so important an article as the Umbrella would be without its lighter as well as its more serious history? Umbrellas are still, we regret to say, regarded rather in a comic than a serious light; so, if any of the following anecdotes seem to treat of Umbrellas in too mocking or frivolous a vein, it is the fault of the bad taste of the British public, not ours, who have merely compiled. However, we may commence with a very neat little French riddle.
"Quel est l'objet que l'on recherche le plus quand on s'en dégoûte?"
A mysterious inquiry, and all sorts of horrible but needful abominations occur to the mind in answer. But the answer is not so bad after all. Change the spelling without altering the pronunciation, and you get _quand on sent des gouties,_ and, lo! you have it at once--le Parapluie--the faithful friend whose presence we most desire when we wish least for the necessity of it; the burden of our fine days, the shelter of our wet ones.
Or again, would you like a verse or two on the same subject?
"Pour étrenne, on veut à l'envie Du frais et du neuf et du beau, Je dis que c'est un parapluie, Que l'on doit donner en _cas d'eau._"
The author of these two _jeux de mots_ unhappily we do not know, or we would thank him for them. The English poet of the Umbrella has yet to be born.
The next story relates to the early history of the Umbrella in Scotland, and may probably be referred to the time when good Dr. Jamieson was walking about Glasgow with his new-fangled sheltering apparatus, which he had brought with him on his return from Paris. As it was the first ever seen in that city, it attracted universal attention, and a vast amount of impudence from the "horrid boys." The following anecdote, then, which we borrow from a Scotch paper, most probably refers to the same period, or thereabouts :--