CHAPTER I.

OF THE WORLD IN GENERAL.

Q. What is geography?

A. The looking for places on a map, or in Downing-street, or anywhere else in the world.

Q. What do you mean by the world?

A. Every place comprehended within the circle of a sixpenny omnibus fare from the Bank.

Q. Of what is the world composed?

A. Of bricks and mortar, and Thames water.

Q. Into how many parts is the world usually divided?

A. Into four great parts, viz.—­London, Westminster, Marylebone, and Finsbury; to which may be added the Borough, which is over the water.  Or it may be said that Fashion has divided the world into two distinct parts, viz.—­the East-end and the West-end, and a great number of suburbs.

Q. How are the bricks and mortar subdivided?

A. Into continents, islands, peninsulas, and isthmuses.

Q. What is a continent?

A. Any district containing a number of separate residences and distinct tenements, as St. James’s, St. Giles’s.

Q. What is an island?

A. An island is anything surrounded by the Thames, as The Eel-Pie Island, and The Convict Hulk at Deptford.

Q. What is a peninsula?

A. Anything that runs into the Thames, as The Suspension Pier at Chelsea, and Jack-in-the-Water at the Tower-stairs.

Q. What is an isthmus?

A. A narrow place that joins two continents together, as Temple bar, which joins Westminster to the City.

Q. How is the Thames water divided?

A. Morally speaking, it is divided into river water, pipe water, and gin-and-water.

Q. Where is river water found?

A. Anywhere between Vauxhall and London Bridges.  It is inhabited principally by flounders and bargemen.

Q. What is pipe water?

A. An intermitting stream, having its source at some distant basin.  It usually runs into a cistern, until the water-rates get into arrear, when the supply ceases through the intervention of a turncock.

Q. Where is gin-and-water to be found?

A. All over the world; but especially in the vicinity of a cab-stand.

Q. In what other manner is the Thames water divided?

A. Physically speaking, into oceans, seas, gulfs, bays, straits, lakes and rivers.

Q. What is an ocean?

A. Any great body of water whose limits it is impossible to describe, as The Floating Bath at Southwark-bridge, and The Real Tank at the Adelphi Theatre.

Q. What is a sea?