The fact being now established to the satisfaction of the authorities
that the public is composed almost exclusively of drivelling idiots,
a campaign has been instituted for adding to the decorations of London
by placarding the walls with hints on how to avoid various violent
deaths.
We are surrounded now by blood-curdling photographs of people being
run over by omnibuses or dribbled along the street by horses
attached to brewers' drays, these illustrations being accompanied by
explanatory notes as to the inevitable result of crossing roads with
your eyes shut or your fingers in your ears and endeavouring to alight
from moving omnibuses by means of the back somersault or the swallow
dive. We are also implored to make quite sure, before alighting from a
train, that it is really at a station.
As this admirable propaganda is only in its infancy, I submit the
following additions to its collection of horrors, which may perhaps
inspire others even cleverer than myself to evolve new methods of
protecting the public from themselves.