Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 31, October 29, 1870

By Author	[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \| Other Symbols ]
By Title	[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \| Other Symbols ]
By Language

Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ]

Look for this book on Amazon

We have new books nearly every day.
If you would like a news letter once a week or once a month fill out this form and we will give you a summary of the books for that week or month by email.

Title: Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 31, October 29, 1870
Author: Various
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.

*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 31, October 29, 1870" ***

Vol. II. No. 31.

PUNCHINELLO

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1870.

PUBLISHED BY THE

PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY,

83 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK.

* * * * *

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD,

As an Adaptation of the Original English version, was concluded in the
last Number. The remaining portion will be continued as Original.

By ORPHEUS C. KERR.

Commencing with Number 30.

See 15th Page for Extra Premiums.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the
PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of
Congress at Washington.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD.

AN ADAPTATION.

BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE SKELETON IS MCLAUGHLIN'S CLOSET.

Night, spotted with stars, like a black leopard, crouched once more upon
Bumsteadville, and her one eye to be seen in profile, the moon, glared
upon the helpless place with something of a cat's nocturnal stare of
glassy vision for a stupefied mouse. Midnight had come with its twelve
tinkling drops more of opiate, to deepen the stupor of all things almost
unto death, and still the light shone luridly through the
window-curtains of Mr. BUMSTEAD'S room, and still the lonely musician
sat stiffly at a dinner-table spread for three, whereof only a goblet, a
curious antique black bottle, a bowl of sugar, a saucer of lemon-slices,
a decanter of water, and a saucer of cloves appeared to have been used
by the solitary diner.

Unconscious that, through the door ajar at his back, a pair of vigilant
human orbs were upon him, the ritualistic organist, who was in very low
spirits, drew an emaciated and rather unsteady hand repeatedly across
his perspiring brow, and talked in deep bass to himself.

"He came in, af'r' bein' brisgly walked up'n-down the turnpike by
PENDRAGON, and slammed himself down-'n-that-chair," ran the soliloquy,
with a ghostly nod towards an opposite chair, drawn back from the table.
"'Inebrious boy!' says I, sternly, 'how-are-y'-now?' He said
'Poorawell;' 'n' wen' down on-er-floor fas'hleep! I w's
scan'l'ized.--Whowoonbe?--I took m' umbrella 'n' thrashed 'm with it,
remarking 'F'shame! waygup! mis'able boy! 's poorysight-f'r-'nuncle-t'
see-'s-nephew-'n-this-p'litical-c'ndit'n.'--H'slep on; 'n' 't last I
picked up him, 'n' umbrella, 'n' took 'm out t' some cool place
t'shleep't off. _Where'd'_ I take him? Thashwazmarrer--_where'd'_ I
leave'm?"

Repeating this question to himself, with an almost frenzied intensity,
the gloomy victim of a treacherous memory threw an unearthly stare of
bloodshot questioning all over the room, and, after a swaying motion or
two of the upper half of his body, pitched forward, with his forehead
crashing upon the table. Instantly recovering himself, and starting to
rub his head, he as suddenly checked that palliative process by a wild
run to his feet and a hideous bellow.

"_I r'memb'r, now!_" he ejaculated, walking excitedly at a series of
obtuse angles all over the apartment.

"Got-'t-knockedinto-m'-head-'t-last. Pauper bur'l ground--J.
M'GLAUGHLIN. Down'n cellar--cool placefa' man's tight--lef' m' umbrella
there by m'stake--go'n' get't thishmin't--"

Managing, after several inaccurate aims at the doorway, to plunge into
the adjacent bedroom, he presently reappeared from thence, veering
hard-aport, with a lighted lantern in his right hand. Then, circuitously
approaching the neglected dining-table, he grasped with his disengaged
digits at the antique black bottle, missed it, went all the way around
the board before he could stop himself, clutched and missed again, went
clear around once more, and finally effected the capture. "Th 'peared t'
be two," he muttered, placing the prize in one of his pockets; and, with
a triumphant stride, made for the half-open hall-door through which the
eyes had been watching him.

The owner of those eyes, and of a surprising head of florid hair, had
barely time to draw back into the shadow of the corridor and notice an
approaching face like that of one walking in his sleep, when the
clove-eater swung disjointedly by him, with jingling lantern, and went
fiercely bumping down the stairway. Closely, without sound, followed the
watcher, and the two, like man and shadow, went out from the house into
the quarry of the moon-eyed black leopard.

Fully bound now in the sinister spell of the spice of the Molucca
islands, Mr. BUMSTEAD had regained that condition of his duplex
existence to which belonged the disposition he had made of his lethargic
nephew and alpaca umbrella on that confused Christmas night; and with
such realization of a distinct duality came back to him at least a
partial recollection of where he had put the cherished two. Finding Mr.
E. DROOD rather overcome by the more festive features of the
meal,--notwithstanding his walk at midnight with Mr. PENDRAGON,--he had
allowed his avuncular displeasure thereat to betray itself in a
threshing administered with the umbrella. Observing that the young man
still slept beside the chair from which he fell, he had ultimately, and
with the umbrella still under his arm raised the dishevelled nephew
head-downward in his arms, and impatiently conveyed him from the heated
room and house to the coolest retreat he could think of. There
depositing him, and, in his hurry, the umbrella also, to sleep off,
under reviving atmospheric influences, the unseemly effect of the
evening's banquet, he had gone back on both sides of the road to his
boarding-house, and, with his boots upon the pillow, sunk into an
instantaneous sleep of unfathomable depth. Dreaming, towards morning,
that he was engaging a large boa-constrictor in single combat, and
struggling energetically to restrain the ferocious reptile from getting
into his boots, he had suddenly awakened, with a crash, upon the
floor--to miss his umbrella and nephew, to forget where he had put them,
and to fly to Gospeler's Gulch with incoherent charges of larceny and
manslaughter. All this he could now vaguely recall, his present
psychological condition, or trance-state, being the same as then; and
was going entrancedly back to the hiding-place where, with the best of
motives, he had forgetfully left the two objects dearest to him in life.

On, then, proceeded the Ritualistic organist in the tawny light of the
black leopard's eye: his stealthy follower trailing closely after in the
shade of the roadside trees where the star-spotted leopard's black paws
were plunged deepest. On he went, in zig-zag profusion of steps and
occasional high skips over incidental shadows of branches which he for
snakes, until the Pauper Burial Ground was reached, and MCLAUGHLIN'S
hidden subterranean retreat therein attained. It was the same weird spot
to which he had been brought by Old MORTARITY on the wintry night of
their unholy exploring party; and, without appearing to be surprised
that the entrance to the excavation was open, he eagerly descended by
the rickety step-ladder, and held himself steady by the latter while
throwing the light of his lantern around the mouldy walls.

His immediate hiccup, provoked by the dampness of the situation, was
answered by a groan, which, instead of being solid, was very hollow;
and, as he peered vivaciously forward behind his extended lantern, there
advanced from a far corner--O, woeful man! O, thrice unhappy uncle!--the
spectral figure of the missing EDWIN DROOD!

After a moment's inspection of the apparition, which paused terribly
before him with hand hidden in breast, Mr. BUMSTEAD placed his lantern
upon a step of the ladder, drew and profoundly labiated his antique
black bottle, thoughtfully crunched a couple of cloves from another
pocket--staring stonily all the while--and then addressed the youthful
shade:--

"Where's th' umbrella?"

"Monster of forgetfulness! murderer of memory!" spoke the spirit,
sternly. "In this, the last rough resting place of the impecunious dead,
do you dare to discuss commonplace topics with one of the departed? Look
at me, uncle, clove-befogged, and shrink appalled from the dread sight,
and pray for mercy."

"Ishthis prop'r language t' address-t'-y'r-relative?" inquired Mr.
BUMSTEAD, in a severely reproachful manner.

"Relative!" repeated the apparition, sepulchrally. "What sort of
relative is he, who, when his sister's orphaned son is sleeping at his
feet, conveys the unconscious orphan, head downward, through a midnight
tempest, to a place like this, and leaves him here, and then forgets
where he has put him?"

"I give't up," said the organist, after a moment's consideration.

"The answer is: he's a dead-beat." continued the young ghost, losing his
temper. "And what, JOHN BUMSTEAD, did you do with my oroide watch and
other jewels?"

"Musht've spilt'm on the road here," returned the musing uncle, faintly
remembering that they had been found upon the turnpike, shortly after
Christmas, by Gospeler SIMPSON. "Are you dead, EDWIN?"

"Did you not bury me here alive, and close the opening to my tomb, and
go away and charge everybody with my murder?" asked the spectre,
bitterly. "O, uncle, hard of head and paralyzed in recollection! is it
any good excuse for sacrificing my poor life, that, in your cloven
state, you put me down a cellar, like a pan of milk, and then could not
remember where you'd put me? And was it noble, then, to go to her whom
you supposed had been my chosen bride, and offer wedlock to her on your
own account?"

"I was acting as y'r-executor, EDWIN," explained the uncle. "I did
ev'thing forth' besht."

"And does the sight of me fill you with no terror, no remorse, unfeeling
man?" groaned the ghost.

"Yeshir," answered Mr. BUMSTEAD, with sudden energy. "Yeshir. I'm
r'morseful on 'count of th' umbrella. Who-d'-y'-lend-'t-to?"

It is an intellectual characteristic of the more advanced degrees of the
clove-trance, that, while the tranced individual can perceive objects,
even to occasional duplexity, and hear remarks more or less distinctly,
neither objects nor remarks are positively associated by him with any
perspicuous idea. Thus, while the Ritualistic organist had a blurred
perception of his nephew's conversational remains, and was dimly
conscious that the tone of the supernatural remarks addressed to himself
was not wholly congratulatory, he still presented a physical and moral
aspect of dense insensibility.

Momentarily nonplussed by such unheard-of calmness under a ghostly
visitation, the apparition, without changing position, allowed itself to
roll one inquiring eye towards the opening above the step-ladder, where
the moonlight revealed an attentive head of red hair. Catching the
glance, the head allowed a hand belonging to it to appear at the opening
and motion downward.

"Look there, then," said the intelligent ghost to its uncle, pointing to
the ground near its feet.

Mr. BUMSTEAD, rousing from a brief doze, glanced indifferently towards
the spot indicated; but, in another instant, was on his knees beside the
undefined object he there beheld. A keen, breathless scrutiny, a
frenzied clutch with both hands, and then he was upon his feet again,
holding close to the lantern the thing he had found.

The barred light shone on a musty skeleton, to which still clung a few
mouldy shreds left by the rats; and only the celebrated bone handle
identified it as what had once been the maddened finder's idolized
Alpaca Umbrella.

"Aha!" twitted the apparition, "then you have some heart left, JOHN
BUMSTEAD?"

"Heart!" moaned the distracted organist, fairly kissing the dear
remains, and restored to perfect speech and comprehension by the awful
shock. "I had one, but it is broken now!--Allie, my long-lost Allie!" he
continued, tenderly apostrophizing the skeleton, "do we meet thus at
last again?--

'What thought is folded in thy leaves!
What tender thought, what speechless pain!
I hold thy faded lips to mine,
Thou darling of the April rain!'

Where is thine old familiar alpaca dress, my Allie? Where is the canopy
that has so often sheltered thy poor master's head from the storm? Gone!
gone! and through my own forgetfulness!"

"And have you no thought for your nephew?" asked the persevering
apparition, hoarsely.

"Not under the present circumstances," retorted the mourner; he and the
ghost both coughing with the colds which they had taken from standing
still so long in such a damp place--"not under the present
circumstances," he repeated, wildly, making a fierce pass at the spectre
with the skeleton, and then dropping the latter to the ground in
nerveless despair. "To a single man, his umbrella is wife, mother,
sister, venerable maiden aunt from the country--all in one. In losing
mine, I've lost my whole family, and want to hear no more about
relatives. Good night, sir."

"Here! hold on! Can't you leave the lantern for a moment?" cried the
ghost. But the heart-stricken Ritualist had swarmed up the ladder and
was gone.

Then, going up too, the spectre appeared also unto two other men, who
crawled from behind pauper headstones at his summons; the face of the
one being that of J. MCLAUGHLIN, that of the other Mr. TRACY CLEWS. And
the spectre walked between these two, carrying Mr. BUMSTEAD'S skeleton
in its hand.[1]

[Footnote 1: The _cut_ accompanying the above chapter is from the
illustrated title-page of the English monthly numbers of "The Mystery of
Edwin Drood;"--in which it is the last of a series of border-vignettes;
--and plainly shows that it was the author's intention to bring back
his hero a living man before the conclusion of the story.]

* * * * *

[Illustration]

PUNCHINELLO CORRESPONDENCE

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

_Bibo_.--Is there a champagne wine having the flavor of gun-flints?

_Answer_.--The wine made at Pierry, in the Champagne country, is said by
connoisseurs to be so flavored. There is much alarm now among the
wine-growers, however, lest the next vintage may have a flavor of
percussion-caps instead, owing to the war and the modern weapons.

_Plantagenet de Vere_.--Would you believe a person named JONES on his
oath?

_Answer_.--We would not.

_Smike_. We read of houses being "gutted" by the Prussian soldiers; have
houses entrails, then?

_Answer_.--All occupied houses have livers, and most houses have lights.

_M. T. Head_.--We cannot pay strangers in advance for contributions that
have not been sent in by them.

_Icarus_.--What do the balloon scouts of Paris use for ballast?

_Answer_.--Bundles of newspapers, chiefly. Immense bales of the unsold
copies of the New York _Free Press_ are now exported for the purpose.
They are preferred to any other papers because, when placed anywhere in
the balloon, they Lie so, and, having already fallen from grace, falling
from a balloon is nothing to them.

_Taxidermist_.--What is the best material for stuffing ballot-boxes
with?

_Answer_.--Greenbacks.

_Leatherhead_.--Is it true that most of the prominent men of
England--"TOM BROWN" HUGHES, for instance--are proficient pugilists?

_Answer_.--We have never seen "TOM BROWN" spar, but we have often seen
JOHN STUART Mill.

_Abby Gansevoort_.--No, my dear, your name does not occur in any of
SHAKESPEARE'S plays.

_Figdrum_.--Born to the drudgery of commerce, I aspire to literature:
what am I to do to see my name in print?

_Answer_.--Put it in the City Directory.

_Voice-in-the-Fog_.--Why is it that all the queer isms of the day, such
as socialism, are more cultivated by Red Republicans than by any other
political sect?

_Answer_.--Red, as artists well know, is the complementary or opposite
color to green. The social phenomenon to which you refer, then, may be
accounted for on the principle that extremes meet.

_Clericus_.--Is it proper for me, as a clergyman, to wear moustaches?

_Answer_.--Quite so, unless they are red, in which case they might
interfere with your published sermons.

_Astrolabe_.--What is the exact distance between the Dog Star and
Roxbury, Mass.?

_Answer_.--We do not know. PUNCHINELLO is not a Sirius journal.

_Juniper Byles_.--My rent has just been raised, and I have had a
curtain-lecture from my wife for swearing about it. Would not you swear
if your rent was raised?

_Answer_.--Certainly not--at least not if it was raised by benevolent
subscription.

* * * * *

AN ACQUAINTANCE.

_Tom_.--"I say, JACK, what a beautiful complexion Miss SMITH has. Do you
know her?"

_Jack_.--"No, but I know a girl who buys her complexion at the same
store at which Miss SMITH buys hers."

* * * * *

"CUM GRANO SALIS."--Musk-melon.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A HORSE-CAR CONTINGENCY.

Gallant Tar (To horrified lady of uncertain age), "BELAY THERE, OLD
WOMAN! TAKE THIS SEAT."]

* * * * *

OUR PORTFOLIO.

PARIS, FOURTH WEEK OF THE REPUBLIC, 1870.

Dear Punchinello: You may not have heard that BISMARCK has been here,
had an interview with FAVRE, and is off again. I didn't suppose you
would know it, so I hasten to give you and your army of readers a brief
synopsis of what took place, as nearly as I can in the exact language
used by the distinguished diplomats upon the occasion.

The scene of the consultation was one of the Imperial wine-cellars under
that pavilion of the Tuileries palace which overlooks the Seine at the
southwestern extremity of the _Place du Carrousel_. The spot was
selected for two reasons: it was far removed from the noise and hubbub
of the city, and it furnished facilities for "liquoring up" in case of
necessity. I was there and left, as you will see, under circumstances
calculated to give me a lasting impression of the event. We all three of
us sat around a pine table, upon which faintly flickered a tallow candle
in a soda-water bottle, that shed around a sickly glare (that is to say,
the candle did). BISMARCK looked a little the worse for wear, I thought,
and, as he unbuttoned his vest with a grunt of relief, he struck me
likewise as being rather short in his wind.

FAVRE was loose and frisky as a four weeks old kitten, and spoke with a
quick, decided tone that reminded me of HORACE GREELEY. He never once
swore, however, during the whole interview. Your readers will observe
that even if this momentous meeting was not marked by the usual
diplomatic usages, the language is strictly according to the usual
diplomatic idiom. It is important to note this fact, as everything
hinges on the "idiom."

BISMARCK was the first to break silence:

"The difficulties which embarrass the questions under discussion stand
first in the order of elimination."

FAVRE assented, and BISMARCK continued: "We must remove the peritoneum
to get at the viscera of the issues (I was much struck with the force
and originality of this method of putting it), and evict those
impressions which are purely matters of national sensibility."

I snuffed the candle and waited for FAVRE.

FAVRE: "Your Excellency abounds in subtle diagnoses."

BISMARCK: "It is not a question of noses."

FAVRE: "Your Excellency mistakes me. I meant to say that, like the
'Heathen Chinee,' your ways are dark."

I moved the light closer to the Count. FAVRE only smiled.

BISMARCK: "Touching 'rectification,' then, Germany sticks to her
position."

I regarded this as an insinuation that somebody was "stuck."

FAVRE: "France adheres unalterably to her previous resolution. National
traditions, deeply interwoven with the fine fibre of individual natures,
forbid the relaxation of tissues logically irresistible."

A smile of triumph flitted faintly o'er the features of the Frenchman.
He evidently thought he had made a "ten strike." I whispered
approvingly, "_Tres bien, Monsieur, tres bien!_"

BISMARCK: "Does the German heart yearn for the Rhine? Does it yearn for
Strasbourg? Does it yearn for Metz? and if not, what does it yearn for?"

He was looking straight at me when he said this, and so I answered
"Bier."

A dark scowl flitted frantically over the features of the German, but he
went right on: "Are all the longings of all these years, dating from the
birth of CHARLEMAGNE and extending through GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS to
FREDERICK the Great and WILLIAM the First, by his father on his maternal
grandmother's side, who lies in the iron coffin of the _domkirche_ at
Potsdam, whence we derive the consolidated grandeur of HOHENZOLLERN
mingling its rich ancestral dyes with the dark woof of fate to dispel
the expanding dream of German aspiration?"

I had not time to witness the effect upon FAVRE, but, gasping for
breath, I started from my seat and uttered these words, which I
remembered to have read in a German-English libretto of MARIE STUART:
"_Mein Gott, ich kenne eures Eifers reinen Trieb, Weiss, dass gediegne
Weissheit aus Euch redet!_"

It did not matter to me that FAVRE lay swooning on the floor. That the
Count glared at me savagely and crunched his jaws with maniacal energy.
My knowledge of German was up. It had caught the fierce impulse, the
majestic sweep of his ponderous linguosity. I remembered another
sentence, and hurled it wildly at him: "_Bei Gott, Du wirst, ich hoff's,
noch viele Jahre auf ihrem Grabe wandeln, ohne dass du selber sie
hinabzustürzen brauchtest!_"

Again I looked at the Count. His jaw had ceased working, and the
expression of his eye had changed. His arm moved furtively beneath the
table. What could he be doing? Horrible moment of uncertainty. Still the
arm worked, as if tugging at something. I could stand it no longer.
Seizing the soda-water bottle, I stooped to cast the rays of the
sixpenny dip beneath the table. As I did so, a boot-heel flashed in the
air, the Count's arm descended with a terrific detonation, and I saw no
more.

(Interval of twenty-four hours.)

The result of the interview will be communicated to the American public
by a Tribune special, as soon as a carrier-pigeon can reach SMALLEY at
London. I am still suffering from a sensation of having been recently
hit,

DICK TINTO.

* * * * *

ASPIRATION.

Of all sorts of people in the world, the Cockney has the queerest
notions about vegetable nature. Show him the first letter of the
alphabet, for instance, and he pronounces it "hay."

* * * * *

APPARENTLY ANOMALOUS.

Should the Prussians ever succeed in entering Paris, it is hardly
possible that they can be well received by the citizens, whether they
find FAVRE there or not.

* * * * *

OUR PRIVATE GALLERIES.

The Belmont Collection.

This admirable gallery includes among its treasures many of the old
masters and-when open for exhibition--a bewildering collection of young
nurses. The latter are frequently inaccurate in anatomical details, but
in point of brilliancy of color they far outshine the best efforts of
RUBENS and TITIAN. The flesh tints produced by many of our Fifth Avenue
belles infinitely surpass the obsolete tints upon which the great
Venetians used to pride themselves.

In Mr. BELMONT'S gallery there are so many original RAPHAELS and
MURILLOS, painted by the very best European artists of the present day,
that it would occupy far too much of our limited space were we to notice
them in detail. We will therefore pass them by, and simply call
attention to some of the more noteworthy pictures, executed by
contemporary painters, which hang side by side with the more smoky but
hardly less valuable works of antiquity. Prominent among these is a
modest little "Fruit and Flower" piece, by that promising young artist,
Miss SUSAN B. ANTHONY. It deserves especial praise for its accurate
copying of nature, the varied beauty of its coloring, and the deep
longing of the heart--the hunger of the soul--which must have inspired
the fair artist. We give a faithful sketch of this charming picture,
though, of course, the glories of its rainbow hues cannot be represented
here.

[Illustration: FRUIT AND FLOWER PIECE.]

A beautiful work, and one evidently inspired by the sound of battle, is
the noble historical painting entitled "On Picket," by Mr. C.A. DANA,
Associate Artist National Academy of Velocipedestrianism. The artist has
produced a picture that must inspire us all with the absolute truth of
the story it so dramatically tells, while he has filled our hearts with
deep sympathy and lofty admiration for the lovely and heroic combatant
depicted on his canvas. Our army officers--Col. FISK for example--who
are ignorant of the sword exercise may derive a hint from this spirited
work, as to the importance of obtaining a thorough mastery of the fence.

[Illustration]

Claude's renowned landscape of the "Ruined Mill" is familiar to all who
are acquainted with it, and has been greatly admired by those who did
not feel impelled to condemn its many faults. But CLAUDE is now known to
have been no artist, but a mere pretender. There is reason to believe
that he had never read RUSKIN, and was hence necessarily ignorant of the
aim and method of landscape painting. Our young friend BROWN, the
_spirituel_ and fascinating assistant Rector of a fashionable uptown
church, has in this gallery a rendering of a similar subject. How
manifest is his superiority to CLAUDE! With what truth and fidelity to
nature; with what holy calm, and child-like faith, and lofty aspiration
has BROWN filled his glowing canvas! And withal, he does not lead us
back to the dead faith and traditions of the past, save to urge us
onward in the pathway of--in the pathway--in short, to urge us on more
or less. To those envious minds who affect to regard BROWN as a mere
amateur, an undertaker of more than he has the ability to execute, we
would deign but one reply, and that would be, "Look at his trees in the
picture called the 'Ruins of the Mill,' and then cower back into your
native insignificance."

[Illustration: RUINS OF A MILL.]

There are many other pictures which we would like to notice in this
article, but want of space will forbid us to do so this week. We have
merely room to mention, with warm approbation, the exceedingly dramatic
little _genre_ picture entitled "Shoo-fly," by the veteran Minstrel, Mr.
DANIEL BRYANT, whose recent translation of HOMER has given him so high a
rank among the best German scholars of the day.

[Illustration: SHOE FLY!]

* * * * *

RULES AND MAXIMS.

How they change! ESCULAPIUS now gives to us and our children, as
_medicine_, what he denounced to the last generation as "_pizen_." The
heresy of yesterday is the orthodoxy of to-day.

Thus the philosophy of those who are _under_ the turf is refuted by
those who are _on_ the turf. It used to be said in regard to horses:--

"One white foot, buy him,
"Two white feet, try him,
"Three white feet, deny him,
"Four white feet and a white nose,
"Take off his shoes and give him to the crows."

But the advent of DEXTER has changed the sinister rhyme to:--

One white foot, spy him,
Two white feet, try him,
Three white feet, buy him,
Four white feet and a white nose,
And a mile in 2-17 he goes.

* * * * *

RIGHT TO THE SPOT.

Additional spots on the disk of the sun are reported. An ingenious
writer, who candidly states that he is not an astronomer, accounts for
them by suggesting that they are caused by stray shots from the Prussian
sharpshooters who tried to bring down GAMBETTA'S balloon.

* * * * *

A QUERY FOR STEEPLE-CHASERS.

We hear a great deal about "featherweights" in connection with racing.
If there _are_ such things as feather weights, why on earth don't the
managers of Jerome Park races stuff the steeple-chase jockeys with them,
to prevent them from being injured by such accidents as happened there
on the opening day of the Autumn meeting?

* * * * *

POEMS OF THE CRADLE.

CANTO VIII.

JACK SPRAT could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean;
And so between them both,
They licked the platter clean.

JACK SPRAT was a near neighbor to the Poet. He was a remarkably delicate
man, cadaverous and thin. A dyspeptic, always ailing, he was a subject
of pity for his friends, and of wonder to his acquaintances. But behold
the eternal fitness of things. Providence blessed him with a wife, his
opposite in every respect. When extremes meet, a perfect whole is the
result; and in this case it was a perfect marriage, fit to be sung by
poets and embalmed in verse.

When JACK SPRAT met SALLY STUBBS, at a husking party, she took his eye,
and kept it. She filled his heart completely. A rosy-cheeked, buxom
lass, healthy and hearty, dimples and dumplings combined, she captivated
and carried, by sheer force of weight, the delicate soul of poor JACK.

It was a case of latitude against longitude; strength against weakness,
smiles against tears, laughter against groans. And so the poor fellow,
feeling an unacknowledged desire to find some one able to support and
protect him, yielded to the advice of his friends and his own
inclinations, and laid his attenuated hand, with his poor little heart
in it, at the fat feet of fair SALLY STUBBS.

He was smiled upon, broad-grinned upon, and accepted; and thereby
rendered for the nonce the happiest of men. Tradition has it that the
next day he actually ate a hearty dinner, and did not complain of his
digestion immediately after. But this is considered doubtful by many.

Fair SALLY, overflowing with the milk of human kindness, and yearning in
her soul to bestow her attentions and corporosity upon JACK'S
attenuosity, urged matters onward, and the wedding day was fixed, the
ring bought, and delicate Mr. SPRAT was led to the altar like a sheep to
the slaughter.

Tremblingly he advanced up the aisle of the village church, leading his
blushing and waddling bride, and took his place, looking like an
exclamation point alongside a parenthesis, before the black-robed
Priest, who speedily put an end to Miss STUBBS, and presented JACK with
a female SPRAT.

Mrs. SPRAT blushed like a full-blown peony as JACK manfully and
courageously saluted her upon one rosy cheek, in the presence of the
assembled guests, and then, to cover her confusion, she giggled and
shook hands energetically with the company, telling JACK to "hold up his
head and do the same, for it was _com eel fut_, and he must try to be
fashionable at his own wedding."

The Bride carried off the honors manfully, and after the first few
moments recovered from her embarrassment, and appeared as much at ease
as if getting married was an every-day affair, not worth minding. JACK
couldn't get over it so readily, and his teeth chattered till late in
the night. But they stopped after a while; so I am told.

We pass over the first few days devoted to honey-mooning, and look in
upon them as they sit at dinner. He with his greyhound and she with her
cat, both animals attentively watching each morsel that disappears from
their longing gaze into the capacious mouth of master or mistress.
Notice with what dexterity and generosity Mr. SPRAT selects the fattest
parts and skilfully conveys them to Madam's plate, reserving the lean
for himself; occasionally throwing a bone to his dog, while the lady now
and then bestows a fat bit upon Puss, who slowly licks her lips and
winks for more. It is a cozy scene of quiet domestic bliss, and so
continues till the platter is empty; when, both feeling satisfied for
the time, they lean back in their respective chairs, and gaze
complacently upon their pets, each other, and the empty dishes.

Their wonderful congeniality and quiet happiness became the subject of
wonder to their friends, and of comment and speculation to the village
gossips. Her oleaginous and feather-bed-like disposition compelled peace,
as oil upon the waves, and shed trouble as a duck sheds water. JACK and
his complainings never troubled her; she merely laughed when he groaned,
and offered to rub his back. But he, fearing the ponderosity of her
hand, rarely submitted; his spinal column being delicate, he dared not
risk it.

Village gossips tell many little incidents connected with the married
life of the twain, which would be invidious to mention here. Suffice it
to say that they were considered fit subjects for the ever-ready pen of
the Poet to seize upon and perpetuate in never-dying verse, for the
benefit of posterity. That the Poet was right in his surmises, we have
only to look around and ascertain how many learned people of all grades
have treasured up in their memory, from infancy, the history of JACK
SPRAT and his wife.

* * * * *

AN OBVIOUS ILLUSTRATION

Scene. A Lunch Counter.

_Customer._ "Waiter, do you call this a milk toast?--why, there's no
milk to be seen."

_Waiter._ "Milk all gone into the toast, sir."

_Customer._ "But there's no toast to speak of."

_Waiter._ "Toast all gone into the milk, sir."

_Customer._ "Ah, ha!--there's an idea in that, by Jove. I'll go straight
home and write a pamphlet upon the new theory of mutual absorption."

_Waiter._ "Yes, sir. Don't forget to mention the Kilkenny Cats, sir!"

* * * * *

[Illustration: ENCOURAGING HOME MANUFACTURES.

_Young Patriot._ "GIMME THREE CENTS WORTH O' CHESTNUTS."

_Female Broker._ "D' YER WANT EYETALIAN ONES?"

_Y. P._ "NO, DARN YER--GIMME AMERICAN ONES."]

* * * * *

COUNT BISMARCK'S ACCOUNT.

BISMARCK'S insolence is really becoming dangerous. He can deny and
contradict the statements made by other Counts, Ambassadors, Kings, or
by himself, without its becoming a matter of sufficient importance to
interest us. Such giving and taking the lie is a part of the business of
persons of this kidney. But he has actually had the audacity to deny the
truthfulness of the report by RUSSELL to the _Times_ of a conversation
held between them. If this thing is not checked in the bud, he will next
be denying--his conversation! with the _Tribune_ "special," as reported
by that ubiquitous observer. What will there be for the world to
believe, if it loses faith in the truthfulness of the papers?

* * * * *

A Con. for the Vatican.

Why is VICTOR EMMANUEL like a tomahawk? Because he is now said to be "a
tool in the hands of the Reds."

* * * * *

THE "LOUDEST" OF SUNDAYS "SWELLS." The Swell of the Church organ.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE PRIZE CALF "S. L. WOODFORD," FATTENED UP BY MESSRS.
GREELY AND CURTIS FOR THE SPECIAL PURPOSE OF BEING CUT UP ON TUESDAY,
NOVEMBER 8TH.]

* * * * *

"DOST KNOW ME?"

Composed by our Special Dangerous Lunatic in one of his Lucid
Intervals.

Dost know me? dost know me? was all the maiden said,
As she streamed her golden tresses through the half-unkneaden bread,
While the sunset light came sheening athwart the oaken floor,
And the Headsman chanted his roundelay at the soul-beshriven door.

Dost know me? dost know me? rang o'er the heather wild,
While the dew-drop lifted its golden head, and the hoary bull-frog
smiled;
Yet every eye was dim with tears, as the shadow of Time replied,
And the echo from over the moorland drear,
In cloistered glory and voice of cheer,
Silently welcomed the Bride.

"Dost know me? dost know me?" and a soul from out the gloom
Welcomed the rippling brooklet flowing past the tomb,
Gilding the steeples, near and far, with a dusk and dimsome spleen,
Tipping with crest of golden fire
Each mighty CAESAR'S funeral pyre
In its wealth of golden sheen.

"Dost know me? dost know me?"--eftsoones the answer came
From the lips of the lady with blonden hair like a wreath of golden
flame,
As she lifted the light of her beauteous eyes to the questioning
lips of the knight,
And muttered those words of import dire,
And flashed her eyes with a baleful fire--
Alas! did he hear aright?

"I know thee! I know thee! for thou art the Khouli Khan,
And I am the Empress of Allahabad, or any other man,
Then turtle soup may lift its crest o'er the stars in the twilight dim,
Ere I, an Empress of regions fair,
With a halo of succulent blonden hair,
Elope with a Khouli grim."

Ah me! 'twas sad, and a gruesome night, when the maiden fair said, "No!"
And gave response to the Knight's demand in accents sweetly low.

THE END.

Gems more clear than this, no doubt, have oftentimes been seen,
Yet methinks, at least, 'tis a poem clear
As poems which every week appear
In the _Waverley Magazine_.

* * * * *

"WELL SAID, OLD MOLE!"

In a newspaper description of Mr. GREELEY, published some years since,
it was stated that he was born with a mole upon his left arm. This may
or may not be the case; but, judging from the persistence with which the
great agriculturist advocates sub-soil ploughing, there can be no doubt
whatever that he has mole on the brain.

* * * * *

BLOOD AND THUNDER!

PUNCHINELLO learns, without the least surprise, that Mr. YOUNGBLOOD has
retired in disgust from the management of the New York _Free Press_. It
is further announced that the estimable publication referred to will
henceforth be under the charge of Mr. OLDBLOOD, a blood relative of all
the BADBLOODS belonging to the JOHN REAL Democracy.

* * * * *

"FALL" WEATHER.

The subject of bringing down rain by the firing of artillery has again
been revived, owing to the long droughts that have lately prevailed.
What gives a color of feasibility to it, at present, is the fact that
the Reign of LOUIS NAPOLEON has lately been brought down by Prussian
guns.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A SIGHT TOO BAD!

_Struggling Cuba._ "YOU MUST BE AWFULLY NEAR-SIGHTED, MR. PRESIDENT, NOT
TO RECOGNIZE ME."

_U. S. G._ "NO: I AM FAR-SIGHTED; FOR I CAN RECOGNIZE FRANCE."]

* * * * *

HIRAM GREEN'S POLITICAL SENTIMENTS.

His Reason for Leaving his Party.--A Catechism for Candidates.

I hain't gilty of any stated polertix, as Ime aware of.

For an old man, Ime helthy and sound as a nut on all public questions. I
use to be an old line Whig, and was a pooty active thimble-rigger as
long as it paid. But when that party refoosed to renominate me for the
offis of Gustese of the Peece, like a thurar bred polertician, I shook
'em. Said I, standin' ontop a sugar hogshead, at a primary meetin, which
was bein held in SIMMINSES grocery store:--

Feller sitizens of the Whig party, Refoose to renominate good men for
offisses, and you can pack your duds and git your carpet bags checkt for
the next steamer goin up Salt River.

Leave my name off'n your ticket for another term of offis, and there
won't be enuff left in your old politikle carciss to grease a flap-jack
griddle with. In the words of Mister--Mister--Somebody, "A word to the
wise is--is--enuff to make a--hoss laff."

And here I say it, Mister PUNCHINELLO, I wasent nominated.

Dident I smash things? Gess not! I norgarated a bolt which spread like
pourin keroseen ile over a marble floor, and the next fall, SCOTT &
GRAHAM was nockt hire'n the Himmely mountins, while the old Whig party
shoveled off its mortil quarrel.

Thus, as HORRIS GREELY, in his remarks on politikle Economy, says:
"Vengents, like a 2 tined pitchfork in the hands of Old Nick, will bust
up any party which goes back onto its trusted leaders. 'Vengents is
mine,' says the disappinted offis seeker, and on Election day he peddles
split tickets ontil the poles close."

Standin as I do on nootral ground, I wish like JOHN BULL I could make my
nootrality pay as well as J. B. does, by sellin stores to the Prooshians
and the French.

In castin my suferage this fall, I shall go Principals not men. A
_principal_ which is good for its little 7 per cent. _intrest_ payable
semi-annually, is what ales me.

High-toned (?) principals, and not men,
Is what's the matter in this ere breast,
The Lait Gustise his influence will lend
To him whose _principal_ pays the best.
(Campane poickry.)

I have prepared a serious of questions, which I propose to ask
candydates who come sneakin around for my sufferage.

_Skedyule of Interogertories._

What's your _principals,_ and is the interest payable in gold or
greenbax?

If elected to offis, will you squander all your salary and retire poorer
than a church mouse? or will you give _such strict attention to your
dooties_ as will enable you to salt down $100,000.00 per yeer from the
enormous salary of $1500.00 ($ fifteen hundred)?

Do you think, takin an _iron_ clad oath has got anything to do with a
sertin commandment which says, "Thou shalt not _steel_"?

Are you a beleiver in E. CADY STANTON'S revoolushinary idees, that woman
is the "coming man," and if so, how do you like it as fur as yoo've got?

Do you think THEODORE TILTON, ED STUDWELL, STEVE GRISWOLD, FRED DUGLIS,
and SOOSAN B. ANTHONY would make as good Presidents of the U.S. as a
man would?

Is your wife one of them strong-minded critters, who believes that
husbands had orter stay home and nuss the baby while she goes out and
plays baseball?

Will you fall onto a voter's sholders, who eats garlix and onions, and
shed tears as freely the day arter eleckshun as you will the nite
before?

Could you sing the "Battle-cry of freedom" so luvly, if it wasent for
Unkle Sam's _Notes_?

Would you have any objections, if our National and Common Counsels, like
that of Rome, should organize _Economikle_ Counsels?

In the war on tother side of the pond, is your sympathies for Lager or
Pea soup?

If you want the German vote, don't you think it would be your politikle
_bier_ to get at _lager_-heads with the Prushians?

Did you ever think before, that yourself and family, way back 15 or 20
generations in the grave, were such a lot of low-lived villyians as the
opposition papers say you be? and haint it a mistery to you that you are
allowed to go unhung?

Did you commit the NATHAN murder? if so, why dident you call off your
_"dorg"?_

Do you know as much about farmin as HORRIS GREELY does? if so, who told
you?

Are you a Fenian, Know-nothin, Mason, Anti-mason, Labor Reformer,
Anti-labor Reformer, a Chineese cooler, Anti-Chineese cooler, and the
"wickedest man in N.Y."? Are you in favor of free trade, high tariff,
free whiskey, whiskey tax, JIM FISK, MARETZEK, Tammany, the Young
Democracy, Grand Army of the Republicans, GEO. F. TRAIN, MRS.
CUNNINGHAM, and the D--l?

In fact, like JOSEFF, have you got a cote of many cullers?

Any candydate who can give affirmative ansers to the foregoin Catekism,
and is willin to show his _principals_ by bleedin freely, can get my
vote, sure popp.

Ewers trooly, & I haint afrade To jine the bread & butter brigade.

HIRAM GREEN, Esq.,

_Lait Gustise of the Peese._

* * * * *

LAST WORDS OF EMINENT MEN.

Selected by Sarsfield Young.

I die a true American. .............................. WM. POOLE.

Bury me where I fall. ... BILLY BOWLEGS, and other military heroes.

The die is _Caste_. .............................. T. W. ROBERTSON.

Bury me where the woodbine twineth. ......... Col. JAMES FISK, Jr.

Fools, 'od rot 'em! .............................. HIGGINBOTTOM.

Bury me in the Fall. .............. The Poet who "would not die in
Spring-time."

Don't give up the ship! [the Secretary-ship.] ..... CHAS. SUMNER to Sec.
STANTON.

Bury me where I fall back. ...... Gen. O'NEILL, of the Fenian Army.

Give me liberty, or give me death, with a decided preference for
ANASTASIA. ..................................... Poor PILLICODDY.

Bury me in the Falls ................................ SAM PATCH.

If any one dare haul down the American flag--wait till you see the white
of his eyes, then--shoot him on the spot. C.L. VALLANDIGHAM.

Let BROWN (or some other first-class sexton) bury me where I fall. Capt.
KIDD.

As I cannot lay my sword at the feet of my army, I die at the head of
your Majesty. .............................. LOUIS NAPOLEON.

* * * * *

A FREE TRADER.

Now gentlemen, of every kind,
Just step into my shop,
And, as I'm hard to pacify,
You'd better bring a sop;
I'll dress you up in any style
For which you choose to call,
But then, you must bring ready cash,
Because I shines for all.

I'm always ready for a trade,
No matter what its kind;
I'll dress you up so very neat,
If your bid suits my mind.
If, when I ask the custom house,
He says, "Give it I sha'n't,"
DAVIS and FISH I strike, because
I does not shine for GRANT.

Sometimes I send a little bill
For goods they have not had,
And if they do not pay at once
Then I gets awful mad.
Of public pap I'm very fond,
I'd like to get it all,
But, if they block my little game,
I does not shine for HALL.

I've lampooned every decent man,
Who with me would not trade;
I keep a little book account
Of those who have not paid:
So, if you don't enjoy free trade,
Don't listen to my call;
I'll give you good names for good pay,
Because I shines for all.

* * * * *

[Illustration: When you go to the theater, it is pleasant to have the
little boy of a rustic couple persist in feeding you with gingerbread
and orange-peel, and, if you request the little wretch to keep still, to
be told by his parents that you are "putting on airs."]

* * * * *

THE MEDICAL CONFIDENCE GAME.

Mr. Punchinello has lately received a medical publication, in which
there are some editorial remarks concerning the relations between
physicians and their patients. The latter are exhorted to place all
confidence in their medical advisers, for, otherwise, there can be no
harmonious action between them. This is all very well, and Mr.
PUNCHINELLO thinks that if anything in this world should be the subject
of sacred confidences, it should be the revelations of the sick-room.
But, after reading the reports of the various cases which are detailed
in this publication, his faith in the advisability of confiding in one's
doctor was somewhat shaken. For instance, when he read that "Miss ANNA
P-----, aged 25, of blonde complexion and apparent good health, residing
near Jefferson avenue and Sixty-eighth street, had been subject for
years to convolutions of the cerebral hemispheres, and had been obliged
at various times to submit to partial amputations of horn-like
excrescences on the divisions of her manual extremities," Mr.
PUNCHINELLO was of opinion that this young lady, who could be easily
recognized from the hints (?) of her name and residence, might possibly
object to the announcement, to all her friends and acquaintances, that
she had cerebral hemispheres, and still more to the fact that they were
convoluted. But this dreadful truth is published, under the merest film
of concealment of her identity, to the whole world, and her physical
condition and subsequent surgical treatment may be town-talk for the
rest of her life. Where is the "sacred confidence" here?

There are dozens of similar cases in the publication referred to, and
medical journals are, in general, full of them.

Will it therefore be wondered at if we don't want all the world to know,
every time we call in a doctor, that we may have a "parenchyma of the
lung," or a "sub-conjunctival cellular tissue," that we will begin some
day to insist as much upon medical honor as medical ability? Mr.
PUNCHINELLO thinks not.

* * * * *

"FIAT LUX."

We learn that our Third Assistant Postmaster-General has been indisposed
for some days, owing to his excessive labor in breaking envelope
contracts. Why does the Postmaster-General allow his subordinates thus
to overwork themselves? We wish he would shed a REAY of light on the
subject.

* * * * *

SCIENCE AND ENDURANCE.

When people undertake any thing in the cause of Science, or indeed in
any other cause, they might as well do their best while they have a
chance. This is an axiom of social economy which is presented, gratis,
to the world.

Now, the three scientific men who intend passing the winter on the top
of Mount Washington, might certainly find some other manner of spending
the cold months in the interests of science which would be much more
difficult and disagreeable. They expect to be snowed up at the Tip-top
House, from December until March, and will spend their time in a room
lined with felt, where they will burn twenty tons of coal during their
sojourn.

Almost any one could do all this. If the scientific gentlemen in
question desire to undergo some really notable hardships there are
plenty of deep lakes in New York, at the bottom of which they might
spend the winter in a diving-bell. They would probably be frozen in
until March, and they would find it much more difficult to use their
instruments, and everything far more disagreeable, generally, than in a
large room in the Tip-top House.

Still if they would prefer something still more arduous, let them ride day
and night, from December until March, in the Third Avenue cars of this
city. If they were to do this, and confine their scientific labors to
observations of the decidedly mean altitude of the Sun, they would
probably suffer more, in a given time, than any previous party of
learned men, and thus accomplish their object much better than by
deliberately allowing themselves to be snowed up on Mount Washington.

* * * * *

A SURPRISING PROPHECY.

Years ago Mr. PUNCHINELLO had a very old grandfather, and he well
remembers that on the _inside_ of the lid of a certain horse-hair trunk,
the property of that estimable old man, was pasted a bit of poetical
prophecy, the words of which embedded themselves, like the hot letters
of a branding-iron, on the tender skin of Mr. PUNCHINELLO'S mind. The
following is the prophecy:

"Add seventy-four and 62,
And forty and 900 too;
Then, if to this sum you place
Seven hundred and an ace,
You will surely find the year
When they ought to disappear--
Both a Certain Holy 'un
And the last NAPOLEON.
And darkness will come wholly on
The Sun. Day, natheless, will glow
Down in the regions far below."

Now this is certainly a very astounding prophecy. If the numbers
mentioned at the beginning of the oracular ditty be added together
without using the ace, they make the year 1776. Now the value of an ace
in Seven-up (and seven is the uppermost word in the line in which our
ace occurs) is four. So four, added to the former sum, makes the year
1780. But even the first NAPOLEON had not made his appearance in this
year, and so it would seem there must be a mistake somewhere. But such
is not the case. If, after the manner of the regular prophecy-makers, we
treat this sum according to the rule of probabilities, we shall see
that, if "seventeen-eighty" will not work prophecy, we must reverse the
year and call it "eighteen-seventy." This hits the mark exactly, and
makes us tremble at the prophetic power of some of those old delvers in
the mines of dark prediction.

For now we see plainly that not only the Pope and the ex-Emperor of
France will probably disappear this year from the scenes of their glory,
but that the Sun, over which a certain dirty mistiness has been stealing
for some time past, will be entirely shrouded in the blackness of ruin.
The lines

"----Day, natheless, will glow
Down in the regions far below,"

doubtless refer to DANA the less, who, when his sheet is utterly
overwhelmed in its self-made oblivion, will deserve, and probably
obtain, all the brightness and warmth to which the verse refers.

Placing this astounding prediction by the side of the amazing events of
the present year, it is impossible for Mr. PUNCHINELLO to repress his
feelings of wonder and awe!

* * * * *

[Illustration]

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

There is an old conundrum song that begins--"Why do summer roses fade?"
The late ARTEMUS WARD thought they did it as a matter of business. Why
do the "Two Roses" bloom? That is WALLACK'S business. Also just now it
happens to be mine.

The modern English comedy is divided into two kinds. Everybody will
consider this statement a conundrum, and answer,--"Bad and good."
Wrong, my little dears. All your lexicographers agree that "kind" means
a "race," which is absurd, because a horse-race, for instance, is
anything but kind. But they explain by saying that it means a genus.
Good plays are not a genus. They are freaks of nature, like the woolly
horse and the sacred cow; only, when they are produced, so many people
will not pay money to see them as to see the w.h. and the s.c.

The division of modern plays, as JONATHAN EDWARDS said wittily, in his
sparkling treatise on "The Will," is into the tame and the wild. For the
latter the recipe is simple. Take some black false beads, hatchets,
pistols, a "dog"--not a quadruped, but the article which was left in Mr.
NATHAN'S hall--a woman in black hair and a white garment, suggestive of
repose, strolling at midnight by the banks of the prattling East River,
foot of Grand Street, and set a house afire at the end of the third act.
That is the BOUCICAULT style, and as the flippant EDWARDS goes on to
observe, it draws like a factory chimney in the Bowery and at NIBLO's.

But this sort of thing will not do at all at WALLACK'S. Of course not.
STODDART is permitted to swear there, to be sure; but I understand that
he does it for fear people should call WALLACK'S the hall of the Old
Men's Christian Association. With that exception there is, as somebody
said about something, absolutely nothing to offend the most fastidious.
Any person who exhibits excitement upon the stage is discharged at the
end of the week with a pension. Miss MOORE is permitted to weep, but she
does it so quietly and nicely that it does not disturb anybody. And the
ushers have received strict orders to eject anybody in the audience who
manifests any marked interest in the performance. A friend of mine from
Peoria once went to WALLACK'S, and took no pains whatever to conceal his
admiration of the acting. On the contrary, at a particularly nice point,
he actually clapped his hands together twice. Of course he was arrested
for breach of the peace, and locked up over night. But the management
declined, to prosecute when it was represented to them that the man had
lately seen McKEAN BUCHANAN at the Peoria Academy of Music, and that he
could not help testifying his gratification that LESTER WALLACK behaved
so differently, and he was discharged. He went back to Peoria, and told
his neighbors that there was a place in New York where they got up a
yawning match (this coarse person called it a "gaping bee") every night
between the stage and the audience, and the stage always won.

Now we know, that is those of us who are in good society, that what this
uncouth rustic mistook for indifference is the air of society.
TALLEYRAND said, or somebody said he said, that the use of language was
to conceal thought. Go to WALLACK'S and you will see that the art of
acting is to suppress emotions. Everything is below concert-pitch,
except perhaps the orchestra, which insists upon playing lively and
popular music, instead of doing the Dead March in Saul for a funeral
procession while the audience files out dreamily to drink, and empties
some dull opiate to the drains. The entire audience are making heroic
efforts all through the play to prevent each other from seeing that they
know they are listening to the most finished acting to be seen anywhere,
and looking at the prettiest stage pictures ever set. All the actors are
all the while trying to conceal the fact that they are doing any good
acting. The whole theatre is in a condition of sweet repose, like the
placid bosom of a mill-pond on a summer afternoon, when STODDART shoots
the Dam.

Well, when you have society theatres, where they do this sort of thing,
you must have society plays. The recipe for these is different from the
gallon of gore and the ton of thunder which make up the other sort. You
must have your actors representing people who are always bored to death,
if you wish to maintain the respect and patronage of a society audience,
whose ambition is to seem to be always bored to death in real life. You
must have what the sweet but-not exemplary SWINBURNE calls "the lilies
and languors of virtue" at WALLACK'S, to balance "the raptures and roses
of vice" which you get at the sensational shops. People may fall in
love, in a mild way, as they do in society, but they must not undergo
the ravages of that passion, as it is exhibited out of society. They
are, so to speak, vaccinated for love, and they are safe from the
virulent confluent or even the varioloid type of the original malady.
They may also transact business, of a high-toned sort, and sometimes
they get out of temper. But their main employment is to wander about and
yawn, or to sit down and sneer.

There is a laborious lunatic who makes ice at the fair of the American
Institute, with the thermometer at 80° or so in the shade. (Note to
Editor.--I don't know the man from ADAM, and have received no
consideration from him whatever for this allusion,) I believe his ice
costs this ingenious individual about four dollars per pound to
make--but no matter. Well, this is exactly the trick by which you make
society plays. ROBERTSON does it to perfection. He is the patent
refrigerator. And the man who did "The Two Roses" has plagiarized his
process and reproduced his results. I don't know whether the idea is to
interest people in what is uninteresting, or to uninterest people in
what is interesting. But he does both.

Perhaps, however, some absurd person would like to know something about
this play. There is a commercial traveller in it, who is taken,
by-the-by, bodily and even to his checked trousers, out of one of
ROBERTSON'S plays. The only addition that has been made is that this one
swears. But then STODDART personates him. This commercial traveller has
a wife. To whom, by-the-by, did it ever occur, before the author of this
play, that commercial travellers could have wives? The wife of this
itinerant commercial person is a stationary commercial person, who keeps
a boarding-house which the youths, the heroes of the play, have the
misery to inhabit. All this is undeniably low for WALLACK'S, and the
sales-ladies in the audience express their sense of that fact by
intimating that EFFIE GERMON'S jewels are not real, and the
sales-gentlemen by confiding to one another at the bar, whither they
wend after the second act to quaff the maddening sarsaparilla, that
WALLACK'S is running down.

As I have abused several revered institutions in these few lines. I
will, in terror of public opinion and private wrath, execute a small
variation on my usual and familiar autograph, and sign myself

PICADOR.

* * * * *

VORACIOUS VEGETATION.

It appears that our ever-active Park Commissioners are making vigorous
efforts to establish a Zoological Garden in Central Park. It has been
generally supposed that gardens were either horticultural or
agricultural; but if the Commissioners can get up anything of the kind
which shall be zoological, Mr. PUNCHINELLO has not the least objection
in the world. He supposes that in such a garden the principal plants
will be Tiger-lilies, Cock's-combs, Larkspurs, Ragged Robins,
Coltsfoots, Horse-chestnuts, Goose-berries, Dandelions, Foxgloves, and
Dog-wood. If full crops are desired, a good many pigeons and chickens
should be kept on the grounds, and that portion of the gardens devoted
to leg-uminous products will probably be occupied by storks and
giraffes.

* * * * *

Is it likely that a set of Chinese gardeners would be able to mind, at
the same time, both their Peas and their Queues?

* * * * *

[Illustration: "ENGLISH GRAMMAR INCLUDED."

_1st Young Gentleman_. "I TELL YOU WHAT, IT'S AWFUL HARD TO GET ANYTHING
TO DO, JUST NOW."

_2d ditto_. "THAT'S SO. I SEEN AN ADVERTISEMENT YESTERDAY FOR A TUTOR IN
A FAMILY, AND I'VE JUST BIN AND WROTE AN ANSWER."]

* * * * *

THE QUEUE-RIOUS FUTURE.

Of all the queues which any man or any nation ever gave to another, the
Chinese have supplied us with the most queue-rious. The arrived man from
that celestial part of the world, who is now so industriously engaged
washing for us in New Jersey, and again, making our shoes in
Massachusetts, and who proposes to be our dairymaid, our chambermaid,
our barmaid, and, if BARNUM will go into the humbug business again, our
mermaid, brought the queue on the back of his head when he crossed the
Pacific Ocean, and landed on the coast of California. Thence he conveyed
it across the Plains, and now our mothers are going back to _two_ queues
such as those they wore when the roses which bloomed upon their cheeks
were not produced by rouge, and to comprehend the lessons in the
school-books which they carried was the severest trial which they knew,
except, indeed, the restrained desire to get married. And our fathers
will wear one tail, as did their ancestors, who curled those appendages
gracefully around the limbs of the trees while they played base-ball
with cocoanuts, or visited in that nimble manner in which none other
than monkeys are capable of moving about. Our great American
agriculturist, too, who has ploughed so deeply in the _Tribune_ office,
is going to look like a Chinese; and she, who has given us our Caudle
lectures now for many years past, will exhibit ANNA DICKINSON as a
convert to two tails. Next, he who serves up for us our religion every
once a week in the form of sanctimonious speeches on the subject of
political economy, will let his congregation go behind Plymouth Pulpit
for the purpose of getting their queues for the next Sunday love-feast
by observing his. The "long" and the "short" of the new vanity, however,
will be found in fullest perfection among the bully-bears in Wall
street, who, of all other honest men, are best able to teach the rising
generation the significance of "heads I win, tails you lose." Then,
again, in the far future perhaps some industrious antiquary will exhume
an awful tail of the present generation that was invented by Mrs. H.B.
STOWE, when she looked across the Atlantic Ocean, and interviewed the
ghost of BYRON. The future is going to be glorious and queue-rious for
all who wish to up-braid, and when our fathers pass us, and we see their
heads, we will be convinced that thereby hangs a tail; also, when our
mothers' heads go by, that thereby hang two tails.

* * * * *

AN ODE-IOUS SUGGESTION.

Swinburne has written an ode to the French Republic. This lofty rhyme is
built up of strophes, anti-strophes, and an epode. In its construction,
and grandiloquence are thrown about with the careless disregard for
innocent passers-by which characterizes that poet's freedom of style.
Most probably no sane English-speaking person has read it through and
preserved his sanity. The poet's idea in writing it was to get the
French engaged in trying to understand it, and the Germans to engage in
translating it, and thus stop the war by pure exhaustion of the
combatants. The idea was good, but hardly practical.

* * * * *

SOCIAL SCIENCE BY TELEGRAPH.

The right of an independent Briton to beat his wife without being liable
to impertinent foreign interference is well known to be one of the most
precious privileges inherited from Magna Charta. The national use of
this privilege is now generally considered, by social philosophers, to
be the foundation of the love of "fair play," so universally
characteristic of the English. It is only upon this ground that we can
account for the following item recently telegraphed from London as a
_special to the N. Y. Times_.

"It is curious to see that, while the married men of the city are
against interference, all military and naval men are loud in expressions
of indignation because no effort is made by England to save France from
ruin."

As we see it, this is not curious at all. To the comprehensive English
mind, the war in Europe is a mere family quarrel, on a large scale. But
what is really curious the special does not tell us. What position do
the military and naval men take who happen to be married?

* * * * *

A GROWL FROM A BRITON.

Mr. Punchinello:--One of the balloon reporters from Paris says:

"Great care is taken to save food from waste. There is much horse-flesh
eaten."

For a Frenchman in a state of siege horse-flesh is all right--the French
eat frogs, you know, and horses have frogs in their feet. What I like
about the thing in Paris, though, is that they _call_ it horse-flesh,
and don't try to jerk it on a fellow for beef. Jerked beef is bad
enough, but only think of jerked horse, by Jove, you know!

Now I want to say that here in New York, not being in a state of siege,
we are eating a lot more horse-flesh than we know of, all the same--but
they call it beef.

Look here, now.

I take my grub, sometimes (only for the sake of seeing life, you know),
at a decent sort of a place enough, to which butchers resort. There is a
man always to be seen there at grub time, a cockish-looking fellow,
somewhat, with a horse-shoe pin in his scarf, and he is as thick as
thieves with the butchers. Yesterday, for the first time, I got an
inkling of who and what he is. I saw him performing an operation upon a
horse, in the yard of a livery stable. He is a VETERINARY SURGEON! He
consorts with BUTCHERS! Put that and that together, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, and
see what you can make of it. And the duffer always eats mutton, too, or
fish. I never yet heard him call for beef. He knows all about nag, and
likes it alive, but he is not to be nagged into eating it. Neigh! neigh!

Yours, irascibly,

YORKSHIRE-PUDDINGHEAD.

* * * * *

DEAD BEATS. Muffled drums.

[Illustration: "THE HARMONY OF THE EVENING."

_Romantic Youth (with more assurance than voice)_.
"I CANNOT SING THAT OLD SONG."

_Voice from next room_.
"THEN DON'T--THAT'S A GOOD FELLOW!"]

GEO. W. WHEAT & CO, PRINTERS, No. 8 SPRUCE STREET.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 31, October 29, 1870" ***

Home