Royal Geographical Society

The Royal Geographical Society becomes a public authority in the debate over Phileas Fogg’s attempt to travel around the world in eighty days when its bulletin publishes a detailed argument against the venture. The article turns the wager’s central promise—an exact deadline—into a test of the fragile connections between trains and ships, and its circulation intensifies public doubt about whether Fogg can succeed.

The Society’s Intervention

On 7 October, the Society’s bulletin carried a long article examining the proposed journey from multiple angles and declaring the enterprise folly. Its intervention followed weeks of public argument: many newspapers had already dismissed the plan as impossible, while the Daily Telegraph had offered hesitant support. The bulletin gave the sceptical case a sustained, apparently systematic form, and the article was copied widely.

The Case Against the Schedule

The article’s central objection was that success required an exceptionally precise agreement between departure and arrival times. It allowed that Fogg might depend on scheduled trains over Europe’s comparatively moderate distances, but questioned whether he could count on crossing India in three days and the United States in seven. Machinery could fail; trains could leave the line or collide; bad weather and snow could block travel. At sea, winter winds and fog could delay even the best steamers by two or three days.

These hazards mattered because the itinerary depended on connections, not simply on speed. Missing a steamer by even an hour, the article argued, could mean waiting for the next one; that lost time would break the chain of communications and make the deadline unattainable. The Society’s argument thus framed the journey as vulnerable to a single interruption at any point along its route.

Reception and Consequences

The article made a considerable impression. Reprinted in newspapers, it seriously discouraged Fogg’s supporters and gave public scepticism fresh force. Five days after its appearance, demand for the bonds issued on Fogg’s projected success began to fall, and their market value declined. The bulletin did not merely comment on the wager: its critique entered a public debate in which newspaper opinion and betting on Fogg’s outcome moved together.

Narrative Significance

The Society’s role is defined by this act of assessment and its consequences, rather than by any personal involvement in the journey. Its bulletin sets the practical limits of the transport network against Fogg’s exacting timetable: a plan may be calculated in advance, but it remains exposed to weather, mechanical failure, and missed connections. The article therefore sharpens the story’s central uncertainty by specifying how little delay the wager can tolerate.