Chapter 3

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Classic Grease.

A Paris grocer ornaments his shop-windows with a bust of ROCHEFORT, done in lard, with prunes for eyes. After this, let us hear no more of the sculptures of classic Greece. But why prunes? Why, to signify that after the funeral of VICTOR NOIR he dried his eyes.

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A Little Berlin Game.

Bismarck has sent Herr SILK to Pekin, to wind himself around the Celestial emperor's heart, and also to make a cocoon for the Tycoon of Japan, after worming himself into his affections. Perhaps, for being such a darin' man, he may be made a mandarin!

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A NOTARY'S PROTEST.

MR. PUNCHINELLO: I protest against certain annoyances to which a man in my office is subjected. Whereby it must be understood that I refer to myself and my official position, not to the nine by twelve apartment where the wicked and perverse can always find my sign without much seeking.

The drift of all this is, that I refer to Bores. It is not new, I know; if it were, a New Sense might be shown by telling whether it came from me originally. I believe that in all walks of life man's inhumanity to man is mainly manifested by boring. Sometimes this is said to have been done in past time, because the greatest "blower" known to the ancients was called Old Bore as we know, and POLYPHEMUS complained of having been bored by ULYSSES.

Let not the patient reader be alarmed now; for I am of a retiring disposition, and am here indisposed to tire by dilating upon a class of people who always Die Late enough of themselves. But I will say that the worst bores with which a notary has to deal, are those who come to swear, (and go out sworn,) and who either forget to pay or haven't the change to pay right. Several such patronize me--changelessly. Singularly enough, all hail from Boston, so that it is no wonder that I cry, All hail, Boston! Here comes General X------, who swears and tenders me an X, and asks for change. Then I swear myself, and say, with HAMLET, that I will change that word with him; whereupon he puts the bill in his pocket and goes _da mit,_ which conduct is both Germain to the transaction and Dutch to me. Again, enters Mr. KOPPER, affably takes an affidavit, and finds, to his grief and astonishment, that he has but eleven cents in his pocket. Of course, he has coppered and won. But why--tell me why, could he not have given me the sentiment, which I had a right to expect from him? He bears the stamp of a bad Kopper; a regular old Nick, and has done that unbecoming thing so often that it is becoming monotonous And General X------ and Mr. K------ are types of a large class who come before me to take acknowledgments and the like, for whom I have no liking; who may as well acknowledge now, severally each for himself, (the aforesaid Nick being for all of them,) that they do take the same, and then, like men shunning fees, go without mentioning fees once, which is surely misfeasance, in the eye of the law. The Dues take them; why should men of means be so mean?

Then there is the man who stays; who is always the coming man, but never the going one. And there is the beggar woman, who enters my office like a ghost, and is a very great bore indeed. But of course beggars are bores of which every office has plenty. Every body knows these characters, however, and owes them too--one, at least, does. Well, it is hard that because a man is bored dead at his boarding-house he can't have peace in his office, and so I have made my protest against the bores, as I said I would. --A NOTARY.

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A War of Castes.

The Michigan University has been unsuccessful in its search for a President, as it has not offered enough to induce acceptance on the part of those to whom it has tendered the honor. It seems to be a case where the Hire and Lore classes come in conflict.

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An Old Story, even Here.

The papers tell of a dog-race which is to take place at San Francisco, and some of them add that a dog-race is a common thing in England, but a novelty here; as if the canine Race were something new in America!

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Shock-ing Intelligence.

Another earthquake in San Francisco.

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PUNCHINELLO ON THE JURY.

PUNCHINELLO has been summoned on the jury. He is asked to try a murderer. PUNCHINELLO is kind-hearted. He wishes neither to put himself in suspense in a jury-box, nor a murderer so in a sheriff's box that the murderer shall finally be put in suspense. PUNCHINELLO is to be asked whether he has formed or expressed an opinion upon the subject of the guilt or the innocence of the murderer, or whether he feels any bias against an accused. Such questions, in PUNCHINELLO'S opinion, are nonsensical. Jurors nowadays are influenced more through their stomachs than through their heads or their hearts. Let a juror, when he comes to be challenged, be rather asked, "Had you a good or a bad breakfast?" "Were you out late last night?" "Have you had the dyspepsia lately?" "Are you bilious?" "Do you habitually eat fried bacon or Welsh rarebit?" "Do you afflict yourself with reading the Tribune?" "Can you digest stewed lobster or apple-dumpling?" so that whenever a juror shall be found freed from dyspepsia, or to be a good sleeper, or a man who can digest even the new Tariff or the Income Tax, it is PUNCHINELLO'S opinion that such a juror will make a capital chap to listen complacently to lawyers, keep patience with witnesses, respect the judge, laugh at the crier, smile at the reporters, give "true deliverances," and contribute something toward redeeming our boasted Anglo-Saxon jury system.

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The Difference.

Salt Lake City and Chicago represent the extreme ends of the social scale. In one place you get as many wives as you like; in the other it is quite as easy to get rid of them.

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Boston out of the Clouds.

There is talk of reviving the old ordinance in Boston against smoking in the streets. This will aim a blow at side stove-pipes as well as at meerschaums; but, fortunately, it will not prevent the smoking of hams or of perpendicular chimneys.

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"THIERS IDLE THIERS."

A newspaper item conveys the interesting intelligence that THIERS, the renowned statesman and historian, consumes snuff to the amount of a quarter of a pound daily. That M. THIERS is thoroughly "up to snuff" every body knows; but that he has so much idle time on his hands as to be able to use a quarter of a pound of it daily, will be news to most people. Let any one of our readers try it. Let him be ever so "good at a pinch," he will find that to feed his proboscis from a quarter of a pound of snuff until he has reached the last pinch, would take up, at a moderate computation, no less than eight hours at a stretch, allowing reasonable intervals for sneezing and blowing his nose. Evidently the story is an idle one--more idle than M. THIERS ever could have been. Perhaps it was "pinching" poverty in the way of items that drove the itemizer to invent it. At any rate, he has made a "mull" of it.

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Apropos of Susan B. Anthony.

"Was ever woman in this humor One?"

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A Gale Brewing.

Boston is agitating a reproduction of the Coliseum, and GILMORE hints at an orchestra of three thousand, with eighteen hundred _wind_ instruments. A gale far more disastrous than that memorable southeaster of last autumn may therefore be expected.

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CHAT ABOUT RAILROADS.

PARTIES: _A Simpleton from the Wilderness, and a Misanthropic Traveller.

[The Simpleton asks for information.]_

"They say that railroads now an't safe. Say, mister, how is that?" It comes of "accidents," my friend-- Where cheap rails spread out flat, Cheap axles break, cheap boilers burst, Cheap trestle-work gives way: No wonder, when you think of that, They kill a man a day!

Well, folks must travel; must go fast; Must take the cars--and risk; They can't afford a Special Train, Like VANDERBILT or FISK; They know a curve that's pretty sharp, A bank that's pretty steep, Rocks that may roll upon the track, "Sleepers" that never sleep;

Here was a "smash-up" not long since, That killed about a score; Two trains "collided" yesterday, And maimed a dozen more. But, go they must--by railroad, too, And all its risks defy: For no American believes That _he_ will ever die!

_[The Simpleton, with open mouth, further questions the Traveller.]_

"In God's name, citizen, pray tell How this can go on, so!" You ask a simple thing, my friend, As I will quickly show. _Directors know their countrymen,_ And _that_ is why we bleed: So long as nothing's done to them, The slaughter will proceed.

It's so in coal-mines, so in mills; It's so on steamboats, too; We're killed by hundreds, every year: But what's a man to do? These harpies make our laws for us-- Or do so through their tools: No doubt we seem to all the world A wretched pack of fools!

We are so busy! We've _no time_ To see that all is right! We'll give the danger all our thoughts-- The moment its in sight! Cheap iron and cheap souls, my friend, Have cursed us all along. But what possesses you, good friend? I'm sure there's nothing wrong!

_[The Simpleton from the Wilderness is terribly excited.]_

"I warn 'em not to serve _me_ so! They'll rue it, if they do! No axle, wheel, nor rail must break; No bridge must let me through! No other train must smash up ours; No culvert fall away; The scaly boiler mustn't burst; And here cows mustn't stray!

"Conductors' watches _must_ keep time; Switch-'tenders _must_ "know beans," And engineers keep wide awake And know what duty means: And (in particular) no fiend Must take into his head To throw my train off down a bank For spite, or even bread!

"What! do these dreadful things go on That companies may thrive? Is _profit_ the sole living thing They care to keep alive? Then, fellow-citizen, rouse up! For you and I are kings! Let us decree-and straightway _have_ A different state of things!"

["Well, you 'decree' it; and when it's done, please let me know," remarks the _Misanthropic Traveller._]

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Sugar-Cane.

The friends of WILLIAM TWEED, in presenting a cane to him the other evening, desired to show the Young Democracy how many there are who Stick to him.

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TUTTI TREMANDO!

Truant Bards! where are the Triumphal Odes and the Congratulatory Poems which should have greeted Mr. PUNCHINELLO, who, after deserting his beloved Italy, after a stormy voyage and unspeakable sea-sickness, has arrived here with a view of settling and of becoming a citizen (having already filed his first papers) of this magnificent Republic? Where are the poets who should have greeted the venerable and illustrious voyager? Imbeciles! See you not that your congratulatory work would have been easy? That PUNCHINELLO rhymes to fellow (good) and to mellow, (decidedly,) to say nothing of bellow, (a proper word for singers,) and to yellow, (although into this and the sear leaf we most decidedly have not fallen, in spite of our three or four hundred years.) Had we but been a Prince, and called VICTORIA R. our mother, we should ere this have been invited to balls enough to ruin our small legs, and dinners enough to destroy our great digestion. Yet, if it should come to the comparison of pedigrees, the Signor PUNCHINELLO feels that he could knock these princelings into a cocked hat, (or shall we say a cocked coronet?) Mr. PUNCHINELLO proudly knows that he is His Own Ancestor and the Perpetual Renewer of his own Patent of Nobility.

Gentlemen poets, it is too late! We will not now have your melodious ovations at any price! It would be a pretty piece of business indeed, if, after sounding our own trumpet for ages, as we may say, we should now succumb to an idiotic modesty. Do you not understand that we were sonorously beating our own drum when the Onondaga Giant was a mere baby? We shall continue to play upon both these private instruments. If we consider ourselves to be wise above our fellow-creatures, witty to a degree most extraordinary, more Senatorial by nature and experience than most of the Potents and Graves in Washington; if we know ourselves (and we hope we do) to be polished, polite, and profound, why should we go hunting about for a bushel to put our light under? Away with modesty! Can printer's ink blush? Who blames the _Tribunes_ and the _Heralds_ and the _Worlds_ and the _Timeses_ for vaunting a circulation which seems to defy mortal numeration? A pretty market we should have brought our fish to, if we should now squeamishly decline to wind our own mellow horn!

If there be any poetical gentleman who desires to write an Epic (in not less than twenty-four Books) on the Life and Adventures of PUNCHINELLO, to be printed on vellum paper, with profuse illustrations, and bound in morocco, this ambitious and worthy person has our full permission to go ahead, and may he find (which we do not believe he will) a publisher sensible enough to produce his work!

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New-England versus New-York.

An item of literary news states that--

"William R. Cutter, Esq., of Woburn, Mass., is preparing a history of the Cutter family of New-England."

This brings New-England directly into collision with New-York. The "Cutter family" was never, perhaps, so fully represented anywhere as it now is in this city. Cutters are continually cutting each other down with knives. Other Cutters--of a less harmful kind--are contented with cutting their own throats, not always to the loss of the world, indeed, but invariably to the profit of the Coroner. Then there are shoals of Cutters who cut and run with funds belonging to others, and of such is Collector BAILEY. Unfortunately, there are very few Cutters in New-York who "cut their coats according to their cloth;" but, to compensate for this, the "diamond cut diamond" variety of Cutter is very common indeed. Altogether it would take an ocean of ink and a promontory of paper to write the history of the Cutter family of New-York.

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RELIGIOUS AMUSEMENTS.

The amusement-seeker must be thought of, even on a Sunday. For life is a most chillingly vaporous affair (reminding one of washing-day in November) without a liberal sprinkling of liveliness. Recognizing this truth, our religious brethren begin to impart zest to their Sunday services by seizing on any passing incident of uncommon raciness, such as a particularly enterprising murder or an exceptionably comprehensive railroad accident, for the text of a sermon or the thrilling theme of an evening lecture. Any thing to fill the house. Thus, we find that "The late Terrible Calamity which befell BANGMAN DONELEY and Family" was advertised as the current attraction in the "West ----th Street United Presbyterian Church," a Sunday or two since. A fine theme! Full of nicely harrowing details. It must have drawn well. We are not informed whether the reverend sensationist had a "real house" made with which to illustrate the overwhelming incident; and some "real people," including children, to be (apparently) crushed when it got blown over, (the blowing being done by himself;) but here was a nice chance for dramatic effect.

And the same Sunday a rival attraction was advertised in the dedication of a new Catholic Church, with "Music by a select choir and orchestra. Admission, $1. Reserved seats, $1.50," Reduced admission fee to the "Grand Dedication Vespers" in the evening. We do not know whether there were opera-glasses on hire, but presume that the comfort of the audience was carefully attended to.

Really, Sunday is not so stupid a day, after all!

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Crispin's Last.

"About women's rights," says he, "there's a great deal of useless talk. And then nobody says any thing about women's lefts. Now, it's my opinion that lefts are as hard to fit as rights, especially with widows and single women. And as for suffrage, women suffer most from having too little sole, and too much heel. MILL, to be sure! He may be well enough on the Floss, but he's not much on leather, believe that!"

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A Western Boucicault.

The _Chicago Republican_, says a Dubuque author, has written a drama called "The Ten Squaws." There should be much Indianuity in the plot of such a play.

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FABLE.

(BY OLD AESOP HIMSELF.)

Once there was a large city that had the same name as the State to which it belonged. The people of the State made laws for the city, because some of the citizens of the city had declared that life and property were not safe unless they did so. But the majority of the citizens disliked this kind of government so much that they began to find themselves very discontented and unhappy. At length they decided to pray to Fate (which meant the Voters of the State) to relieve them from the burden under which they were groaning, and restore their power. Then Fate heard their cries and lamentations, and was kind enough to come to their relief. "Now, why don't you use your power?" she asked. "Oh!" said the late unhappy, and indeed wretched majority, "we only wanted a chance to quarrel a little among ourselves, and call each other hard names." "Couldn't you have done that before?" asked Fate. "Why do you give me all this trouble?" "To tell the truth," said the Majority, "when we wash, we like to show our dirty linen; and we couldn't let enough people see it without getting you to help us." "Well," said Fate, "in future you'll get no assistance from me in washing your foul linen. If you like to be known as dirty people, go on being dirty, and every body that has nose and eyes will finally understand you."

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Punchinello in Erie.

In the _Tribune's_ report of the arguments on the Erie case before the Assembly Committee on Railroads, Mr. BURT is said to have stated his belief that Mr. CROUCH is a contributor to PUNCHINELLO. Our best thanks are due to Mr. BURT for his "first-rate notice," though, at the same time, we wish to inform him that no contributor of the name of CROUCH has hitherto made his appearance in these columns. To speak plainly, PUNCHINELLO never Crouches. As he has no "slouch" about him, so he has no Crouch.

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A Rather Flashy Idea.

With regard to heating the Hotel Dieu Hospital, in Paris, by electricity, a contemporary has remarked, "Of course, we know nothing of the apparatus by which this result is accomplished in Paris; but we had the opportunity of witnessing on Wednesday last, at the Winder building, the experiments of Dr. LEIGH BURTON in applying electricity for warming railroad cars, which were entirely successful and satisfactory." Of course, _we_ know nothing about it either; but we hope the new method is a great improvement on the old one, as we have several times witnessed _from_ the Winder, buildings, barns especially, heated by electricity in a very _un_satisfactory manner.

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"On Two, Richmond!"

RICHARD III. fancied that there were "two RICHMONDS in the field." Singularly coincidental with this, and well worth the attention of Shakespearean scholars, is the fact that Richmond, Va., is now running two mayors. Of course, Richmond, Va., cannot now be looked upon as a "one-horse" town.

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Ritualistic.

One of the latest allurements held out by the managers of a celebrated "high" church in this city, is a "three hours' agony"--which is about the most appropriate name for a long and tedious sermon we remember ever to have heard.

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BOYHOOD.

There can be no reason to doubt that METHUSELAH was blessed with a tolerably vigorous constitution. The ordeal through which we pass to maturity, at present, probably did not belong to the Antediluvian Epoch. Whooping-cough, measles, scarlet fever, and croup are comparatively modern inventions. They and the doctors came in after the flood; and the gracious law of compensation, in its rigorous inflexibility, sets these over against the superior civilization of our golden age. At a time when the court-dress of our ancestors was composed of fig-leaves, or of imperfectly dressed skins--nothing like the Astrachans of the nineteenth century--it would certainly have been very inconvenient to coddle ailing infantry through an attack of diphtheria, for example. So bountiful Nature, then in the first blush of maidenhood, doubtless brought the long-lived Patriarch through his nine hundred and sixty-nine years without once calling in the family medical adviser. It is recorded, however, that he was born and that he died, and he therefore certainly passed through that stage of existence called Boyhood. And as he was nearly two hundred years old at the birth of his first-born, it is reasonable to suppose that the adolescent period was frightfully prolonged in his case. Just imagine a youngster of a hundred and ten or fifteen stealing apples or running to fires! The revelations of ethnology, which is too youthful a science to reveal a great deal, do not oppose the theory of all matured humanity, to wit, that the animal boy is the same in all ages and in all races, an Ishmaelite, and Ara, an Outlaw, hedged in and restrained by laws and customs, it may be, but innately antagonistic to society.

The Philosophers who have traced humanity through all stages of its development, from the Aphis creeping on the rose-leaf to the full-grown specimen in the person of a Member of Congress, have wisely and invariably omitted all notice of boyhood in their lists of gradations and transitions. Any thing like a fair examination of this particular development scatters their doctrines to the four winds. Because the salient traits to the next higher development, could not part with their own identity, or send these distinguishing characteristics, in one fell swoop, through many stages, only to reappear at last in the upper type, and only between infancy and manhood, and only in one sex. This argument is overwhelming, and the present purpose is to elucidate it by more particular examination.

It is proper, in the first place, to gather a blossom from the negative side of the discussion. Boys are not girls. While dogs, and foxes, pigeons and ducks, have each a generic term applicable to both sexes, there is a tacit understanding in civilized localities that boys compose a distinct genus. They are, in the eye of the law, considered human, probably because they eventually pass from boyhood to humanity, There is an old nursery rhyme which marks the distinguishing characteristics of juvenile members of society with remarkable accuracy: