3-052-778 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Odd sketches at the Zoological Society's Gardens: pachydermatous or thick-skinned animals, 1880. 'Our Sketches are designed, in the spirit of grotesque or comic art, to represent a few of the queerest and most obvious instances of a fanciful resemblance, in some features of corporal configuration, of aspect or gesture, between well-known inhabitants of the dens and cages and the accidental bystanders or spectators. "Pachydermatous," or thick-skinned, as the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, or elephant, no human constitution is allowed to be; there are times when it might be a comfort to have the hide of those burly beasts, impervious to all superficial annoyances of the flesh or the spirit, instead of our painful sensibility and liability to feel all manner of disagreeable attacks. The fat, gross, boorish kind of man, who converts all that he eats and drinks into a thick mass of bodily substance, a wall of stout defence around the vital organs, and buttons an ample covering of broadcloth over his capacious chest, may be congratulated upon a certain degree of immunity from those perils of delicate refinement'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.