Editions of Three-Quarters of a Century Ago Reveal Striking Prophecies--English Comic Shown in Widener

"Punch's Pocket Book's" and "Kate Greenaway's Almanacs and Calendars" make up the New Year's exhibition in the Widener Treasure Room this week.

Peculiarly enough the tiny volumes issued each year by England's comic magazine and examples of which from 1844 to 1880 are now on view, seem to concern themselves to a marked degree in their colored engravings with topics of equal or greater moment today than at their time of issue. Thus those of 1852 and 1860 are titled "Progress of Bloomerism or a Complete Change" and "Swimming for Ladies." The figures depicted by the engraver John Leech show that though the costumes of this day would today be conspicuous for their superfluity, at that time they represented what the younger generation would do despite the protests of their more staid mothers and grandmothers.

"A World on Wheels" in 1879, in this case two wheels instead of the present day four, views the approach of the time when highways will be filled with riders, just as now illustrators present a sky crowded with man-made birds. A striking prophecy is contained in the engraving of 1846 on "Hyde Park as it will be." Although the automobiles which fill the entire scene are propelled by steam and resemble dwarfed locomotives rather than modern cars, the whole idea of the picture seems prophetic of the present era, some eighty years later.

The complete set of almanacs and calendars designed by Kate Greenaway, which are on exhibition, present the work of the founders of present day children's literature. The costumes of the girls and boys shown in these pieces set the style for those days and introduced such fashion ideas as extremely high wais; lines and milk-maid hats.