IN WHICH A NEW SPECIES OF FUNDS, UNKNOWN TO THE MONEYED MEN,
APPEARS ON 'CHANGE


Phileas Fogg rightly suspected that his departure from London
would create a lively sensation at the West End. The news of the
bet spread through the Reform Club, and afforded an exciting topic
of conversation to its members. From the club it soon got into
the papers throughout England. The boasted "tour of the world"
was talked about, disputed, argued with as much warmth as if the
subject were another Alabama claim. Some took sides with Phileas
Fogg, but the large majority shook their heads and declared
against him; it was absurd, impossible, they declared, that the
tour of the world could be made, except theoretically and on paper,
in this minimum of time, and with the existing means of travelling.
The Times, Standard, Morning Post, and Daily News, and twenty other
highly respectable newspapers scouted Mr. Fogg's project as madness;
the Daily Telegraph alone hesitatingly supported him. People in general
thought him a lunatic, and blamed his Reform Club friends for having
accepted a wager which betrayed the mental aberration of its proposer.

Articles no less passionate than logical appeared on the question,
for geography is one of the pet subjects of the English;
and the columns devoted to Phileas Fogg's venture were eagerly
devoured by all classes of readers. At first some rash individuals,
principally of the gentler sex, espoused his cause, which became
still more popular when the Illustrated London News came out
with his portrait, copied from a photograph in the Reform Club.
A few readers of the Daily Telegraph even dared to say,