Chapter 5

_Answer_. Not at all. He can Take her In by not keeping his appointment, or--he can charter an omnibus if he likes.

_Vinous_. Can you give me any information about high wines and dry wines? Can wines be high and not dry, or both high and dry, or how? Please explain. Was HENRI do BOURBON the last of the Bourbons?

_Answer_ I. DELMONICO'S _Clos Vouguet_ at $16 per bottle is a high wine but not a dry wine. It might be, though, if it wasn't wet. II. Not by a good many.

X. Please, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, who were CASTOR and POLLUX?

_Answer_. Twins. (By Gemini you ought to have known that!)

_Scissors_. Where can I have access to old files of the leading news-papers?

_Answer_. In the editorial rooms of the same. You must be brief, however, as their time is valuable, and these Old Files are apt to be crusty, if bored.

_Old Salt_. How can sea-sickness be avoided?

_Answer_. By never going to sea.

_Linnaeus_. Does a knowledge of botany necessarily involve a knowledge of square root and cube root?

_Answer_. Our correspondent is evidently trying to quiz us. PUNCHINELLO will pay no attention to levity of this sort.

_Claude_. I desire to make a few presents to a young lady who is intellectual but very timid. What shall I give her?

_Answer_. Presents of Mind.

_M.C._ I am going to buy a new faro-table for my place up-town--you know where. What is the best shape and material?

_Answer_. A Square Deal table generally suite _players_ the best.

_Williams_. No, sir; the term Fiscal year has no reference to Col. FISK, Jr.

_Gardener_. Haydn's Book of Dates is not a Horticultural book.

_Byron, Jr_. Your verses would be much better if you would pay less attention to your Feet and more to your Head.

_M.J.B._ Dear Mr. PUNCHINELLO: Our darling little pet, Tinkums, is not well, and does nothing but cry all night, to Charlie's great vexation. What will stop the little darling's crying?

We would suggest a hot pitch plaster directly over the mouth--that is, if the child was in the house with us.

* * * * *

Ego Sum.

I am some. (Pumpkins understood.)

* * * * *

The Milky Way.

The road from Orange County.

* * * * *

Edwin to Emma.

Flax Vobiscum.

* * * * *

SAILING DIRECTIONS

FOR ENTERING AND LEAVING YOKOHAMA BAY.

From our special correspondent if Washington we have received the following Special Order of the Navy Department, directing United States men-of-war how to approach and leave Yokohama:

SPECIAL ORDER NO. 999.

In consequence of the late disaster to the U.S. sloop Oneida, the following rules are hereby published for the guidance of vessels of war approaching the Bay of Yokohama:

I. On making the land, or if at night, on striking the soundings, all hands will be called to prayers.

II. After prayers all boats will be lowered and towed astern, to be out of the way of damage.

III. The gunner, under direction of the executive officer, will dismount all guns, and strike them into the hold. The reasons for this action will be at once apparent to commanders of vessels, when they reflect that, in case of collision, the guns would be useless as signals, owing to the extraordinary deafness of the officers belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Mail Steamship Company; and a reference to the details of the Oneida's disaster will show the danger of the guns breaking loose and destroying human life. They will, therefore, be at once stowed in the hold.

IV. On entering the bay, the helm must be kept amidships. The rule of the road, according to English interpretation, is so difficult of comprehension that the above is by far the safest plan.

V. Each officer and man will be directed to secure upon his person such valuables belonging to him as he can conveniently carry.

VI. Finally, it shall be the duty of the commander to see that all hands are provided with life-preservers.

VII. The same rules will apply to vessels leaving Yokohama and proceeding to sea.

VIII. Having taken the above precautions, vessels may stand boldly into the bay, and in case they are run into and sunk by any other vessel (say for example one of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's ships) their officers and men will stand some little chance of saving their lives. But should all precautions fail, the gallant crew will be no doubt greatly consoled, as they sink to their graves, by the reflection that a pious Congress will pass resolutions of sympathy for their widows and orphans.

* * * * *

A PLEA FOR PROTECTION.

MR. PUNCHINELLO: I like your paper, though it is altogether too light and trifling in its treatment of serious subjects. Besides, it never treats of any thing serious. This won't do. The earnest men and women of the nation require something better at your hands. I have an essay on the "Origin of Evil," which I forward to you by this mail, and which, when published, will give an entirely different character to your journal. I want you, moreover, to advocate our American doctrine of Protection. Even our ablest statesmen, KELLEY, GREELEY, and DANIEL PRATT, have never carried this doctrine far enough. They are willing to protect American iron-masters by prohibiting the introduction of foreign iron, but why don't they protect American laborers by forbidding foreign workmen to land on our shores? I demand protection for the native ditcher. Forbid the Irishmen to land here and to lower the price of labor by competing with our own ditch-diggers. Put a stop to the influx of German tailors and bootmakers, who prevent native artists from earning the wages that would otherwise be theirs. Protect our authors by prohibiting the sale of works written by foreigners. Keep all foreign pictures out of the country, and give our own POWELLS and ROSSITERS a chance. And, above all, protect our American girls by preventing any pretty English, French, or German girls from coming in competition with them. These foreign girls bring their pretty faces here and glut the matrimonial market. The fewer the marriageable girls, the higher their market value. We protect iron-workers, and decline to protect our own daughters. This is an outrage. Shall we prevent the railroad companies from laying rails made of foreign iron, and permit husbands to marry foreign wives? Every patriotic and protectionist instinct revolts against it. I want you to take this matter up. Let us have no more foreign manufactures, foreign iron, foreign books, foreign laborers, or foreign girls. This is the true American system, and I look to you to aid in carrying it out. MOTHER CAREY.

* * * * *

PUNCHINELLO IS SORRY.

Alas! it is with tears in his eyes, albeit unaccustomed to such humor, that PUNCHINELLO condoles with the ladies of Massachusetts on the defeat of the proposition to endow them with the right of suffrage. The Puritan Patriots in the State Legislature, who unanimously recognize the "inborn right" of the black field-hands of South Carolina and Georgia to make laws for the white women of the Republic, have scornfully denied, by a vote of 133 to 68, that the white women aforesaid have any political rights at all; thus officially proclaiming to the world that they consider their wives, their daughters, and the mothers that bore them, inferior to the ignorant male African; unworthy to vote with him at the polls or to sit with him in council.

PUNCHINELLO is aware that the ladies of Massachusetts had set their hearts upon rising to the negro level "before the law," and can therefore appreciate their disappointment; but they ought to have known that neither the ties of nature, the bonds of wedlock, nor the claims of intelligence, are of any force in the Home of the Pilgrims, as compared with the influence of the Ebony Lords of Creation, whoso reign as sovereigns commenced with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.

The STANTONS, the BLACKWELLS, and the ANTHONYS, the Members of the Women's Parliament and the Sisters of Sorosis, advocated negro suffrage with the full expectation of sharing the franchise with PETE and CUFF; but alas! while these wool-dyed Africans are conducted in triumph to the ballot-box, _they_ are ignominiously thrust back from it. For this black wrong there is no colorable pretext. There is not a shade of excuse for it, and PUNCHINELLO hopes that it will open the eyes of the ladies of the land, and prevent them henceforth and for ever from placing the slightest confidence in the gallantry or impartiality of the Puritanic prigs of New-England.

* * * * *

ASTRONOMICAL CONVERSATIONS.

[BY A FATHER AND DAUGHTER RESIDING ON THE PLANET VENUS.]

No. III.

_D._ Now then, father, for that Description of the Telescope!

_F._ Very well, my child. The great Object of the telescope--

_D._ Is the Object-Glass, is it not, father?

_F._ Come, come, HELENE; no nonsense, now. The great object had in view by the inventors of the telescope--

_D._ Father, don't you mean the Great Object they _expected_ to have in view, when they got it made; a Distant World, for instance?

_F._ Pshaw, child! be serious. Don't spoil a good thing by untimely interjections. They are as mal a propos as a mosquito coming across the Field of View.

_D._ I'd rather he'd do that than come across _me!_

_F._ Well, HELENE, you are positively exasperating!

_D._ Not more so than your mosquito.

_F._ Well, I declare--this is too bad!

_D._ So is his bite!

_F._ Well, well; I must walk out and take the air. [_Going_]

_D._ Yes, pa, (and see that you don't take anything else!) Now, then! for a grand look for my Charmer! Really, I am getting quite Earthly! [_Looks through the instrument a few moments_] Why, what is this? Oh, pshaw! I see! I've got JUPITER by mistake! I mistook one of his Belts for a new Belt Railroad. It would have been a Big Thing, that railroad; not less than 75,000 miles long, as I figure it. Perhaps those Belts _are_ Railroads! Perhaps they have Rings there, as they have at Saturn, only less conspicuous. JUPITER is rather a Slushy planet, if I am correct in regard to its Specific Gravity; of about the consistency, perhaps, of the New-York Poultice Pavement I've been reading about. I should think that JUPITER'S lack of gravity and consistency would make him a favorite with Aldermen--not the less for having so many Satellites. I wonder if the New Charter is the celebrated Magna Charter under a new name? Probably it is no better. Oh, dear! the annoyance of living so far away! Nothing here attracts me. The distant, the unattainable, is all I think or care about!

F. [_Coming in quietly._] What's that, HELENE, about the charms of the Unattainable? You don't seem to see any thing very attractive in MERCURY or MARS!

_D._ Well, some things may be both unattainable and undesirable. That's the case with the little thieving god MERCURY, and that big red-skinned Prize-Fighter, MARS. I can't understand, however, why these disreputable deities should he worshipped in your favorite New-York.

_F._ Well, as near as I can see, (a matter of a few million miles, more or less,) when you speak of Worship, they have more regard there for Millinery than any thing else. The Christian Religion is based on Humility, which has Purity and Simplicity for her Handmaids. Look into some of these New-York churches! see how the jewels glisten, the rich stuffs fall gracefully in massive folds. Observe the sumptuousness, the elaborate display! A fine Humility this! Then look at the ceremonial. Here is a church edifice, belonging to a denomination that assumes to be Decent and Orderly in ceremony. Is it so in _this_ church? What means all this tawdriness of color, the crimson, the blue, the gold; what signify these fantastic designs and figures, these monkey-like genuflexions; this wilderness of sign and symbol, this elaborate abasement, this theatrical show of exaltation? This an improvement on the old dignified simplicity? Do you tell me that childishness, and prettiness, and pettiness, are valid substitutes for a genuine, manly modesty and simplicity?

_D._ (Oh, dear! he's been drinking again! How bitter the Bitters do make him!) Look! Father, come, quick! Here is a Railroad Accident, such as you have often wished to see. Two trains have collided, and both have rolled down an embankment at least seventy feet high! into a river, I do declare! They are all lost!

_F._ Do let me see at once, HELENE I [_Looks eagerly._] Ah, yes; all gone; nothing visible but one smoke-pipe, three stove-pipe hats, four bits of orange-peel, some pea-nut shells, and thirteen copies of the _New-York Ledger_. Sad fate! But see! Some dry-goods-no, a young lady flounders along toward the shore! The bystanders rush up; she is nearly exhausted; pants rapidly; they congratulate her. A well-dressed young man approaches. She instantly begins to think of her looks; her hand flies to her back hair. Heavens! there is so much gone there that she shrieks in alarm! Her fall in the water has detached her Waterfall! _That_ gone, every thing is gone! She springs to her feet! Glancing hurriedly over the watery waste, now plentifully strewn with fans, little canes, and certain objects which are either mail-bags or _chignons_, she descries her better part, and with a wild cry, (as when a mother rescues her babe from tigers,) dashes in and seizes the darling object! She presses it to her lips, and impetuously breaks for the shore! Alas! too late, by about ten and a half seconds! "Save it!" she seems to cry; tosses the wad ashore, and down she goes, with her hand on the back of her head, her last thoughts, evidently, more or less, connected with that sympathizing young man on the bank above.

_D._ Father, you talk like a brute! Have you no feeling? Boo-hoo hoo-hoo!

_F._ Child, I am _all_ feeling. Boo-hoo-hoo-too!

* * * * *

HORTICULTURAL HINTS.

KITCHEN GARDEN.--Plant pickles early, if you are up in time; if not, later. But don't eat them late, unless you are equally fond of dyspepsia.

In planting peas, select that kind that does not grow hard and yellow; that is, unless you supply boarding-houses, or have a government contract for the supply of shot.

Grated turnips, mixed with horse-radish, for the table, will assuage one's grief for one's grandmother.

Rice-puddings can be grown, ready-made, by sowing rice with cowcumbers. Try it.

NURSERY.--Transplant from hot-beds to bath-tub as soon as possible, using sponge with palm-soap and cold water. Top-dress with comb and brush. Trim limbs according to age. Train with rods. Much depends on starting right, so start to school right after breakfast.