Isle of Wight Observer June 2, 1888
THE ISLE OF – WHAT? – The Lighthouse, a journal devoted to shipping, &c., thus discourses: When overhearing a conversation touching upon the beauties, etc, of the Isle of Wight, an irate listener, who had frequently visited the Island, asked, “The Isle of What?” Nobody ever knew what he was driving at, but that matters not. There is an old saying to the effect that there is no pleasure without pain, and the pain so far as the Isle of Wight is concerned is certainly the scale of charges to which one has to submit here, there and everywhere. The enterprise of Ryde has often been a theme of comment on the part of journalistic scribes, and we are delighted to add our testimony in a case which has just come under our notice. Anxious to emulate the glorious example of their gifted town council, the local flymen have adopted a revised scale of charges of an exceptional character. One day last week a valued subscriber to the Lighthouse was driven from Ryde Pier gates to Morgan’s, the tailors, a distance of 117 yards 2 inches, for which luxury a charge of 2s 6d was made. We have been trying to calculate how much a foot this would be but have failed in the attempt, suffice to say that it is about on a par with early strawberries which are usually reckoned at 1s per bite. Whilst speaking of the Isle of Wight we would like to ask how it is that the hotels there do not publish a list of visitors? Can it be – away horrid suspicion! – that paterfamilias wearied of the lares and penates of home wings his flight to the southern isle, there to exchange ideas, etc., with strange goddesses, but desires no publicity of the fact?
