Isle of Wight Observer March 27 1869
STRAY SKETCHES FOR CIVIC FURNITURE
We have had submitted to our inspection an exceedingly well executed sketch bearing the above title, suggested we are informed by reading in a local paper the report of a discussion thereon in a newly made borough. It is a cruel piece of satire skilfully delineated, and unquestionably emanates from the brain of the clear wag who not long since favoured us with a most complimentary design for our municipal seal. The chair proposed for our worthy Mayor is artistic in design, and not by any means altogether comfortless; those allotted to the Clerk and the Councillors are not only without cushions but present such an appearance of unmitigated rigidity that weary humanity turns from them in disgust. On the other hand the setting accommodation provided for the Aldermen is of a most delightfully luxurious character, and is so devised as to enable these municipal magnates to conduct their official transactions in an almost recumbent position. The seats on which the representatives of our local press are supposed to settle are of an excessively indurated and primitive character, but nevertheless possess positive comfort in comparison with either that assigned for our sergeant-at-mace of those appropriated to the burgesses who pay the rates, the former being an inverted bucket, and the latter such a frightfully hard and uncomfortable contrivance that it can only be characterised as resembling the natural result of a cross between a butcher’s block and a washing stool. As the caricaturist preserves a strict incognito, we are unable to communicate in any other manner our desire to be furnished with another copy of his inimitable burlesque of civic upholstery.
