1-150-236 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'The London Bathing Season', 1859. Come, my dear! - come to its Old Thames, and have a Nice Bath! Father Thames is here shown trying to coax a climbing boy in to his water for a bath. Father Thames drips with a slow slime and on his back is the usual mangled kettle and dead cat. All around him are the dead animals floating on the surface of the sluggish water. Not unreasonably, the climbing boy holds his nose and does not relish the prospect of entering the filthy water of the Capital's river. A return of Punch to the terrible contamination of the River Thames. From Punch, or the London Charivari, June 18, 1859.