This pretty toy may be purchased at any optician’s for two or three
shillings. It consists of a cup, in which is placed a standing human
figure, concealing a syphon, or bent tube, with one end longer than
the other. This rises in one leg of the figure to reach the chin,
and descends through the other leg through the bottom of the cup to
a reservoir beneath. If you pour water in the cup, it will rise in
the shorter leg by its upward pressure, driving out the air before it
through the longer leg; and when the cup is filled above the bend of
the syphon, (that is, level with the chin of the figure,) the pressure
of the water will force it over into the longer leg of the syphon, and
the cup will be emptied: the toy thus imitating Tantalus of mythology,
who is represented by the poets as punished in Erebus with an
insatiable thirst, and placed up to the chin in a pool of water, which,
however, flowed away as soon as he attempted to taste it.