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

Chapter III: Canto VIII

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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!"

* * * * *

_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.

* * * * *

"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.

* * * * *

_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.

* * * * *

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!

* * * * *

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?

* * * * *

_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.

_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.

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Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 31, October 29, 1870Chapter III: Canto VIII

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