Miss Emma Harding In The Puppet-Show

The Puppet-Show was an irreverent weekly commentator on politics and the theatre, published by the Vizitelly Brothers, which had a relatively short run in the late 1840s.

How nice to come across, therein, this snippet, in a review of an extravaganza called The Devil's Violin, which was paired with (or a had segment called) The Revolt of the Flowers at the Adelphi in August of 1849.

In the scene where the flowers, with Miss Emma Harding at their head, as the rose, revolt against the gardener, who comes to cut them for a bouquet, Mr. Wright, who plays the horticultural individual in question, was irresistably comic. A propos de bottes (that is, "as an aside"), if the nursery gardens around the metropolis produced such lovely plants as those which Miss Emma Harding heads, we think we may venture to give it as our opinion that young men would become remarkably fond of gardening.