MR PROCTOR.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3689, 11 May 1883, Page 4

MR PROCTOR.

A caricature of Mr Proctor, with the following smart sketch by "Jehu Junior" appears in Vanity Fair of March 3rd: — " When Mr Proctor Aveut to Cambridge College, oven twenty years ago, ho had no thought of becoming a prophet. He had learned several languages more or less efficiently, and he laid excellent mathematical capabilities. After beating all the best men of his year, and proving that he could bo Senior Wrangler if he chose, he grieved the academic heart by deciding not to choose. Rowing and riding seemed to him very much better than thermodynamics and curves as objects of human interest; so he rowed and rode instead of earning the affection of coaches, The moral proceedings of Meesrs Oveiend and Guaney startled him in the midst of his athletic ourccr, and lie fiinv that the universe contains uiiiny things besides outriggers and hacks. Having lost his fortune, ho settled down to steady work, and, to beguilo the world, he wrote a little treatise on cycloids, which is the best thing oi its kind ever done by an Enylish mathematician. Eighty pco2)lc in the world rushed upon this book and bought it; but, so far from being , satislied with this unprecedented appreciation of his years of labor, Mr Proctor declared that he would have a larger audience. He therefore devoted himself to astronomy, and became tho secretary to the Royal Astronomical Society to tho enormous dismay of the fogies. He has lectured in America and Australia; he has written innumerable essays of the brightest and clearest kind ; he has sketched, modelled, and married an American lady. These feats caused the fogies to esteem him as heterodox. At present he is editor of Knowledge, and his journal seems to please many people. He is five-and-forty years of ago, he has invented a new theory of the universe, and he is afraid of growing fat."