Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870
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Various >> Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870
Gospeler SIMPSON, by natural law, alternated from this wonderful
cupboard, very regularly, to another, or sister cupboard, also presided
over by the good old maternal nut-cracker, wherein the energetic pill
lived in its little pasteboard house next door to the crystal palace of
smooth, insinuating castor oil; and passionate fiery essence of
peppermint grew hot with indignation at the proximity of plebeian
rhubarb and squills. In the present case he quietly took his
anti-bilious globule: which, besides being a step in the direction of
removing a pimple from his chin, was also intended as a kind of medical
preparation for his coming services in the Ritualistic Church, where, at
a certain part of the ceremonies, he was to stand on his head before the
Banner of St. Alban and balance Roman candles on his uplifted feet. When
the day had nearly passed, and the Vesper hour for those services
arrived, he performed them with all the less rush of blood to the head
for being thus prepared; yet there was still a slight sensation of
congestion, and, to get rid of this, when he stepped forth from Saint
Cow's in the twilight, it was to take an evening stroll along the shore
of Bumsteadville pond.
(_To be Continued_.)
* * * * *
CONDENSED CONGRESS.
SENATE.
[Illustration 'D']
Down again came the furious FRANK. But not the fiery Hun. Mr. STOCKTON
was Frank. He said he represented New Jersey. (Enthusiastic Groans.) The
constituents of New Jersey were a peculiar people. Such was their
depravity that they said they would rather have fifty per cent taken off
their taxes than to receive the speeches of their representatives in
Congress free of charge. Under these circumstances they looked upon the
franking privilege, he regretted to say, as a swindle, and remonstrated
with him, with tears in their expressive and fish-like eyes, against
being hidden by a shower of public documents. The Congressional Globe
made a very inferior article of lamp-lighters, and the proud pigs of New
Jersey declined to fatten upon the Patent Office reports.
Mr. TIPTON was in favor of the franking privilege. What good would it do
anybody if Congressmen drew postage-stamps in lieu of writing their
names. As for him, he found it much easier to draw postage-stamps than
to write his name, and he was sure that none of them were so lost to a
sense of their own dignity as to pay their own postages, like ordinary
human beings.
Mr. STEWART said certainly not. The only thing was that there would be
an account kept of the number of postage-stamps they drew, but nobody
knew how often a man used his frank. He himself had been censured for
franking a few tons of pig-iron from Washington to Nevada. But no amount
of postage-stamps would have carried it.
Mr. DRAKE referred to the darkest hour of the late war, when
postage-stamps were current, and when, if the proposed changes were
effected, they could have made the Post-Office department pay for their
drinks. But in the present state of the South, when the Ku-Klux Klan, in
spite of his most earnest endeavors, refused to kill anybody, he saw no
hope that those golden hours would return. Therefore he thought it best
to cleave to his frank.
HOUSE.
Mr. LOGAN desired to expel WHITTEMORE permanently. WHITTEMORE had really
gone too far, and if they let him in people would consider that they
were no better, and institute investigations of a disagreeable nature
into the conduct of Congress generally. Of course the House had a right
to expel him. It had a right to expel everybody but himself.
Mr. ELDRIDGE said that directly Mr. LOGAN would be claiming that he--Mr.
ELDRIDGE--ought to be expelled. This would be unpleasant to him. He
would not die in spring-time.
MR. BUTLER said, in default of getting San Domingo annexed, he would
like to get the patent of a friend of his in Massachusetts extended.
Mr. FARNSWORTH objected, upon the ground that Mr. BUTLER had received
shekels from the patentee.
Mr. BUTLER said, if he had, he hadn't so much hair on his face as
FARNSWORTH.
The Comic Speaker performed a solo on the gavel, and said it was none of
FARNSWORTH'S business anyhow.
Mr. FARNSWORTH said Mr. BUTLER had got $2,000, and hadn't earned it.
Mr. BUTLER said Mr. FARNSWORTH was a coward and an assassin.
The Comic Speaker said he rather thought FARNSWORTH was a coward, but
assassin was unparliamentary.
Mr. FARNSWORTH said the evidence showed that BUTLER was on one side
before he got a fee, and on the other afterwards.
Mr. BUTLER said there was nothing green in his eye. As for FARNSWORTH,
nobody would ever pay him $2000 for anything.
The Comic Speaker said that all Mr. FARNSWORTH'S remarks were perfectly
shocking. As for Mr. BUTLER, his conduct was admirable.
Mr. SCHENCK saw that the interest was absorbed by FARNSWORTH and BUTLER,
and tried to divert it by getting up a little shindy with LOGAN. He said
LOGAN wanted everything done in LOGAN'S way, when notoriously everything
ought to be done in SCHENCK'S way.
Mr. LOGAN said SCHENCK had led the House by the nose for four weeks. Now
he proposed to lead it for a few days himself--by the ear.
The Comic Speaker said he liked to see this. It made things lively for
the boys. He hoped SCHENCK and LOGAN would keep on. But they didn't; and
Mr. DAWES said he had charged some time ago that the expenses of the
Government had increased. He wished to take that back. It seemed there
had been an error in the accounts. The Government had made a mistake
against itself of seventy-six millions, and another in favor of itself
of seventy-seven millions. Both added together made more than a hundred
and fifty millions, which would reduce the expenses below those of the
traitor, murderer, viper, and unpleasant person known as ANDREW JOHNSON.
* * * * *
CURRENT FABLES.
THE BULLS AND THE BEAVERS.
The Lion claimed dominion over all the beasts wherever they were found,
but some of them were rebellious. Among the malcontents were the Bulls,
part of whom inhabited a pasture so rich that it was called the Green
Isle, while others lived in a charming country with "the best government
the world ever saw," owned and occupied by the Eagles. Adjoining the
latter was a colony of quiet and inoffensive Beavers. The Bulls, angry
at the Beavers for their humble submission to the rule of the remote
Lion, resolved to make war upon them. Accordingly, those Bulls who lived
in the Land of the Eagles proceeded to invade the colony, intending to
dispossess the Beavers and form a government of their own. But the
Eagles had a reasonable degree of respect for the Lion, not so much on
account of his individual strength, which was comparatively trivial, but
because he was the ruler of all manner of beasts. So their leader, after
making the second memorable speech of his life, in which he said "The
Eagles is at peace with the Lion," despatched a little Eaglet to arrest
the progress of the Bulls. This messenger, flying to the edge of the
Beaver's colony, caught and confined in a prison the leader of the
Bulls, who, as he was being conducted to jail, cried out, "Verily it is
not the strength of the individual, but the number of his supporters,
which is the measure of his power."
* * * * *
THERMOMETRICAL.
In the present torrid state of the weather, can the Oriental
craftsmanship lately introduced here be properly termed Coolie labor?
* * * * *
THEATRICAL NOTE.
The OATES troupe now performing at the Olympic Theatre must not be
confounded with the Horse Opera.
* * * * *
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.
It occurs in PUNCHINELLO, at this late day, to remark that the friends
of America in England, even in the darkest hours of the rebellion, were
ever disposed to look on the BRIGHT side.
* * * * *
POETRY VERSUS PROSE.
A traveller, who has lately been shipwrecked on the ocean, has a notion
that there is precious little poetry in being Rocked in the cradle of
the deep.
* * * * *
THE ONLY GERMAN POET RECOGNIZED IN WALL STREET.
KÖRNER.
* * * * *
FUN AND FIN.
[Illustration: 'S']
Since President GRANT's famous trouting excursion to Pennsylvania,
piscatorial pastimes appear to have become quite the thing among the
magnates of the Government. The following item from Washington, cut from
a morning paper, reads very like a bit of gossip from the history of the
Court of CHARLES II:
"General SPINNER and some of his female Treasury clerks went to the
Great Falls to-day to catch black bass."
Redolent of all that is rural and sweet, is the idea of SPINNER,
surrounded by a bevy of his "female Treasury clerks," reclining upon a
shady rock just over the Great Falls. We behold SPINNER, with our mind's
eye, "fixing" a bait for one of the lovely young fisherwomen, while half
a dozen of the others are engaged in fanning him and "Shoo-ing" the
flies away from his expressive nose. The picture is a very pretty one,
recalling to mind some brilliant pastoral by WATTEAU. There are numerous
accessories arranged in the foreground, such as hampers of cold chicken
pie, hams of the richest pink and yellow hues, and baskets of champagne,
and it would be interesting to know who pays for all. "Spinning a
minnow," as the anglers term it, for black bass, is a very appropriate
pastime for SPINNER, but, for a fresh-water fisherman, there is
something very Salt Lakey in that arrangement regarding the "female
Treasury clerks."
* * * * *
"LOT" ON A LOT OF PROVERBS.
DEAR PUNCHINELLO: One of my friends, who, much to the disgust of his
fellow boarders, is constantly playing an adagio movement in B flat upon
a flute, (that may not be the correct musical term, but no one will ever
know it unless you tell,) informs me that you are astute; another
friend, who makes cigar stumps into chewing tobacco, says, you're "up to
snuff." Assuming the truth of those statements, I apply to you for
information. You have the ability, have you also the inclination, to aid
a poor, weary mariner on the voyage of life, (in the steerage,) who has
been buffeted by reason, tempest-tossed by imagination, becalmed by
fancy, wrecked by stupidity, (other people's,) and is now whirling
helplessly in the Maelstrom of conundrums? (If that doesn't touch your
heart, then has language failed to accomplish the end for which it was
designed--to deceive others.)
I'm the great American searcher after truth, and, though I've been at
the bottom of every well, except the Artesian ones, I am still a
searcher. Can you refuse to throw a straw to a drowning man, or a crumb
to a starving fellow-creature? Knowing that you have a mammoth heart,
and abundance of straw, and lots of bread, I feel that you cannot. List!
oh, list! and I will my caudal appendage unfold.
Is enough as good as a feast, if the former is enough of walloping and
the latter is composed of pheasant and champagne? (i.e.: Is real pain as
good as champagne?) TOM ALLEN evidently got enough in his late fight,
but I'm inclined to think that he would rather strain his jaws at a
feast than at a fisticuff. The Young Democracy once got enough staying
out in the cold, but, when some of them were admitted to the feast, they
did not appear to be at all satisfied, but grabbed at the choicest
titbits.
Is one bird in the hand worth two in the bush, if the one in the hand is
the Police Board, and those in the bush are the Supervisorship and the
Health Board? And suppose you've succeeded in getting your fingers on
those in the bush, wouldn't you try to make a haul? Why, I can imagine a
man who might have the Governor's place in hand, and yet consider one
bird in the bush better, if that bird could sing an old tune called
White House.
How can it be possible that this world is all a fleeting show? I've
visited a great many shows, and have found that all of them are
conducted on the same principle. You pay your money at the door, sit
undisturbed through the performance, unless some junk-man should take to
junketing, and get out easily, the proprietor in fact seeming rather
glad to get rid of you. But when you enter the world, you pay nothing,
on your way through it you pay constantly, and getting out of it--at the
present prices of coffins and bombazines--is one of the most expensive
things on record.
Why mustn't you look a gift horse in the mouth, if you are prudent
enough to do it on the sly? Besides, don't everybody look in the horse's
mouth, as soon as the giver has departed? Suppose you're patriotic, and
offer your son to Uncle SAM as a gift, to use in his civil service,
isn't Mr. JENCKES's bill designed as a means of looking into your son's
mouth? Maybe it's to find out if he's a public cribber. What I want to
know is, does this prohibition apply to donkeys?
What possible connection can there be between doing handsome and being
handsome? Now there's BROWN, who persuaded me, on or about black Friday,
to buy his gold at the highest figures, and thus did a very handsome
thing (for himself), but he is still the ugliest looking man in our
street.
If it be true, as stated in "The Gates Ajar," that there will be pianos
in heaven, haven't the men who learned harp-making, on the theory that
it was a permanent business, been grossly deceived, and haven't they an
action for damages against somebody, if they can find out who it is?
If all the world's a stage, what are cars? I admit that all Broadway is
a stage, but is it at all probable that GOV. HOFFMAN vetoed the Arcade
railroad bill on that account? Besides, if all the world's a stage, why
should the men who carry passengers care about the duty on steel rails?
Is it true that a man must not laugh at his own jokes? Don't you suppose
that the man who invented the _canard_ about the Jews in Roumania is
laughing at the squabble which he has raised between the Associated
Press and the American Press Association, by means of his little joke?
And don't you suppose, when the returns of the last election came in,
that Mr. TWEED laughed very vigorously at his little joke, called the
new election law? If Congress should keep on joking for the rest of the
session, and, as a result, the Republican party should be turned out of
power, don't you suppose that the members will laugh--on the other side
of their mouths?
There is a certain saying, which everybody retails, about the kind of
people who tell the truth. Now I always tell the truth. I'm exactly like
GEORGE WASHINGTON. If I had cut down the cherry tree, and my stern
parent had appeared upon the scene with a rawhide and asked me who did
it, I should have instantly replied, the hatchet. But I am not a child.
Can it be that I am the other thing?
Now, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, can you do those sums? I have tried them in every
possible way. I have let X equal the unknown quantity, but I don't know
Y. If you can solve the problems, will you send me the answers by the
first post?
Yours,
LOT.
[Our correspondent seems to labor under the impression that we are a
primary arithmetic, or a dictionary, or a conundrum book. We regret his
mistake, and can simply say that we are nothing of the sort. Any
reasonable conundrums, such as, How old is the world? How many
individuals is Mrs. BRIGHAM YOUNG? What becomes of the Fenian money?
When will Cuba be free? we would willingly answer, but our correspondent
cannot expect us to solve problems which are as old as BARNUM said JOYCE
HETH was. He should be able to see such things as others see them. They
are the unwritten law, and PUNCHINELLO does not propose to alter them.]
* * * * *
CONCERNING THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN.
'Tis well enough that GOODENOUGH
Dr. LANAHAN should teach,
That, sure enough, there's law enough
Such slanderers to reach.
But, like enough, this GOODENOUGH
Dr. LANAHAN may impeach,
And prove enough that's bad enough
To justify his speech.
* * * * *
UNKIND.
TOODLES made a solemn vow the other day, in presence of MUGGINS, that he
"would never shave until he had paid off his debts," but MUGGINS, in
relating the fact, said simply that "TOODLES had concluded to wear a
full beard the rest of his life."
* * * * *
THE POEMS OF THE CRADLE.
Old Mother Hubbard
GENTLE READER: You have a soul for poetry. Even when an infant, and in
your cradle, you had a soul for poetry. You were not aware of it at this
early stage, but your mother--if you had one--was. With what fond
alacrity did she hasten to your cradle-side, when some wicked little pin
was trying to insinuate itself into your affections much against your
inclination, and soothe you with the pleasing strains of Mother Goose.
And how your eyes brightened and your little feet and hands commenced
playing tag, when you heard the wonders of Mother Goose extolled in
pretty verse. Ah! those were the days of romance. I will leave them now,
to search for the hidden beauties of one of your childhood's melodies,
the eventful career of Mother HUBBARD and her dog.
I will begin with the opening Canto of the poem, and limit myself, for
the present, with detailing the beauties of its many incidents.
CANTO I.
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the Cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone;
When she got there
The Cupboard wan bare.
And so the poor dog had none!
Now, Kind Reader, follow closely whilst I display the hidden beauties of
Canto First. You will notice that the author, who now sleeps with the
unnumbered dead--a presumption on my part--has no dedication, no
introduction, no preface. He scorned a dedication, that misnomer for
gratuitous advertising. He wanted no patron, no Lord or Count somebody
or other, who might, perhaps, insure the sale of one more copy. No. He
determined to paddle his own canoe. And he did, you bet.--He wrote no
preface. What was it to the public how many ancient authors he had
ransacked to obtain ideas for his poem? What was it to the public how
many noble minds he had associated with him to help him in his laborious
work? What would the public care about his intentions to have his book
in such a form, to appear at such a date, or to be sold for such a
price? What would be the use of apologizing to the public for his many
weak points, when he thought that he knew more than they? On the
contrary, he very naturally determined that if his Poem, wasn't
readable, it would not be read, and a Preface of ignorance would make
the matter no better.--He kept clear of the folly of an Introduction-a
something which a writer gets up just to keep his hand in, perhaps, or
to tell the reader that _he_ knows all about it!--The empty dishes on
the banquet-board: no one cares for them.
Our felicitous Author, throwing aside all these traditional
idiosyncrasies, launches boldly into the billowy sea of his
idea-scattered brain[A], and in his very first line gives a full,
concise description of the heroine, Mrs. HUBBARD; and having finished
her description, enumerates, as was meet, the peculiarities, and, I
might say, dogmatic tendencies, of the hero of the tail, Herr Dog! [He
(not H.D., but the Author) says "Old Mother HUBBARD."] Here is
simplicity for you! Here is brevity! "Old Mother HUBBARD!" How sweetly
it sounds; how nicely the words fit each other! What an immense range of
thought he must have who first said "Old Mother HUBBARD." Less gifted
authors of the present would rejoice exceedingly, could they do
likewise. Ah!--and a spark of enthusiasm lightens up your countenance,
[Highfalutin,]--they have no HUBBARD. And if they had they would
commence with a minute detail of how old she was, how venerable she was,
what kind of a mother she was, whose mother she was, and all about her
aunt's family.
Alas! for the fallen state of our Literature, which tells you
everything, and leaves you nothing to guess at, lest you might not guess
correctly. Well, as I previously observed, the author says "Old Mother
HUBBARD." He must have been correct. You know how it is yourself.
This felicitous writer then proceeds, and in the next line gives vent to
his pent-up feelings thusly: "Went to the Cupboard." "Went!" What a
happy expression! How appropriate! Besides, it supplies a deficiency
which would have occurred had it been left out. "Went!" There's Saxon
for you. Our happy author, overburdened by his transcendent imagination,
has not the evil propensity of thrusting upon his reader the mode of how
she went; but, noble and manly as he was, he leaves it to you and to me
how she went!
Here is a vast range for your imagination. Give your fancy wings. One
may think she waddled; another that she rambled. One may say she
preambulated; another that she pedalated.[B] One may remark that she
crutchalated; [C] but all must concede that she "went". Now whither did
she "went"? Ah! methinks your brain is puzzled. Why, she "went to the
Cupboard," says our author, who, perhaps, just then took a ten-cent nip.
She did not go around it, or about it, or upon it, or under it. She did
not let it come to her, but she went herself to the above-mentioned and
fore-named Cupboard.
Now, when a woman undertakes to do a thing, she has always a reason for
her undertaking; argoul, as my friend, the grave-digger, said, the
heroine of this Epic must have had an object in view. Otherwise, what
would take her to the Cupboard? She was evidently a strong-minded woman,
and would not fritter away her valuable time for nothing. To the
Cupboard she went "to get her poor dog a bone," says the author,
following out the logical sequence of the plot. The hero of the tail was
not in the Cupboard. Of course not. The "bone" was there. Ah! but _was_
the bone there? The sequel will show.
Just imagine the mild complacency, the unutterable sympathy, the
affectionate lovingness of the heroine for her hero! And with what
gentle expression she speaks of him--"her poor dog." Verily, must there
have been an abyss of kindly feeling in that Old Dame's large heart for
her poor dog!
But alas! for human care and anxiety. Away ye smiles and hopes.
"L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose."[D]
In other words, when she got there, to the Cupboard, and peered into its
dark recesses, and searched the hidden corners of its many shelves, "the
Cupboard was bare."
Alack-a-day for Mr. D.! When he saw his kind mistress toddling along to
the receptacle of many a remnant of many a luxurious feast, he was,
perchance, filled with affection. Melting tears came to his eyes, and
poured, like a cataract, down his noble cheeks. Would it do to have his
loving mistress witness the outburst of his long pent-up feelings? Alas!
No. He must hide his tears. He tore his tail from the wag which was
about to seize it, and gently wiped away his tears! Poor fellow! Your
heart warms towards him, and you stretch out your hands to embrace him,
or to kiss him for his mother, perhaps. How must the author have felt?
If there was one grain of compassion in him, he would feel as I do, as
you do, as we all do, and trust that the loving affection of that poor
dog would be amply repaid by the promised "bone."
The decrees of Fate are inexorable, however. When she went to the
Cupboard, the Cupboard was bare; had not even one bare bone, and so that
poor heroic dog "had none." [Very long O.] I pity him truly, and fain
would shed tears of grief over his melancholy affliction, if I wasn't so
awfully warm. For was never dog so disappointed as this dog. "Nev-a-r-e,
by all-l-l that's h-h-holy-y-y-e-e."[E]
Not wishing to be an unwilling witness to the sad scene which was
enacted between these two loving creatures on the disappointment of
their fondest hopes, I will draw the curtain, and leave them, solitary
and alone--alone with themselves, and with no aching eye to witness
their grief, to give vent to their heart-bursting anguish.
The author did wisely and well to close the Canto.
Let us have--a rest!
[Footnote A: Original. By GUM.]
[Footnote B: Copyright for sale for all the States.]
[Footnote C: Ditto.]
[Footnote D: This is French--H. D.]
[Footnote E: Quotation from XII T.]
* * * * *
STANDARD LITERATURE.
A writer in the _Standard_, thinking that the title Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is clumsy on account of its length,
proposes that it be changed to Animalthropic Society. It is not likely
that Mr. BERGH, who has some reputation for scholarship, will adopt a
suggestion in which a bit of Greek is brought in "wrong end foremost,"
unless, indeed, his well-known partiality for the canine creature might
induce him to look with favor upon a compound so manifestly of the "dog
Greek" description.
* * * * *
QUERY
Might not the child's new-fangled humming-top, which is advertised to
dance sixty seconds, be said to dance a minuet?
* * * * *