Chapter 1

Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Sandra Brown, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders from material generously made available by Cornell University

PUNCHINELLO, Vol. I, Issue 10

SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1870.

PUBLISHED BY THE

PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY,

83 NASSAU STREET, NEW-YORK.

CONANT'S

_PATENT BINDERS_

FOR

"PUNCHINELLO,"

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* * * * *

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PUNCHINELLO'S MONTHLY.

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STEEL PENS.

These pens are of a finer quality, more durable, and cheaper than any other Pen in the market. Special attention is called to the following grades, as being better suited for business purposes than any Pen manufactured. The

"505," "22," and the "Anti-Corrosive,"

We recommend for bank and office use.

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* * * * *

[Sidenote: See 15th page for Extra Premiums.]

* * * * *

_Will Shortly appear: Our New Serial, written expressly for Punchinello, by ORPHEUS C. KERR, Entitled, "The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood." To be continued weekly during this year._

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* * * * *

Notice to Ladies.

DIBBLEE,

Of 854 Broadway,

Has just received a large assortment of all the latest styles of

Chignons, Chatelaines, etc.

FROM PARIS.

Comprising the following beautiful varieties:

La Coquette, La Plenitude, Le Bouquet,

La Sirene, L'Imperatrice etc.,

At prices varying from $2 upward.

* * * * *

PHELAN & COLLENDER,

MANUFACTURERS OF

Standard American Billiard Tables.

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* * * * *

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ACTIVE AGENTS WANTED.

* * * * *

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_Each Agent in direct communication with the New-York Office._

* * * * *

Mercantile Library

Clinton Hall, Astor Place,

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This is now the largest circulating Library in America, the number of volumes on its shelves being 114,000. About 1000 volumes are added each month; and very large purchases are made of all new and popular works.

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* * * * *

AMERICAN

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572 and 574 Broadway, New-York.

This great combination machine is the last and greatest improvement on all the former machines, making, in addition to all work done on best Lock-Stitch machines, beautiful

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* * * * *

* * * * *

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OFFICE OF

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83 Nassau Street,

[P.O. Box 2783.]

* * * * *

* * * * *

A CONSISTENT LEAGUE.

Immediately upon McFarland's acquittal, the Union League of Philadelphia determined to give a grand ball. And they did it. And, what is more, they intend to do it every time the majesty of any kind of Union is vindicated. Except, of course, the union of the "Iron interest" and the public good.

One of the most valuable and instructive features of this ball was, the grand opportunity it offered to the members of the League to show their respect and affection for the spirit of the Fifteenth Amendment, Accordingly, they invited a large number of colored ladies and gentlemen, and the accursed spirit of caste was completely exorcised by the exercises of the evening. The halls were grandly decorated with blackberry and gooseberry bushes, and other rare plants; sumptuous fountains squirted high great streams of XX ale and gin-and-milk; enormous piles of panned oysters, lobster salad, Charlotte Russe, and rice-pudding blocked up half the doorways, while within the dancing hall the merriment was kept up grandly. The ball was opened by a grand Cross-match waltz in which Hon. MORTON MCMICHAEL and Mrs. DINAH J--N; GEORGE H. BOKER and Miss CHLOE P--T--N; WILLIAM D. KELLEY and Aunty Di. LU-V-I-A-N; A. BORIE and Miss E. G--N; Gen. TYNDALE and Miss MAY OR--TY, and several other distinguished couples twirled their fantastic toes in the most reckless _abandon_. Virginia reels, Ole Kentucky break-downs, and other characteristic dances diversified the ordinary Terpsichorean programme, and the dancing was kept up to a late hour. It was truly gratifying to every consistent supporter of the enfranchisement of the African race, to see such gentlemen as _Senator_ REVELS, FREDERICK DOUGLASS, Mr. PURVIS, and other prominent colored citizens, in the halls of this patriotic and thoroughly American Society. The members of the League were evidently of the opinion that it would be a most flagrant shame, on an occasion of this kind, for them to deny to their colored fellow citizens the rights and privileges that they are so anxious shall be accorded them by every one else; and, while they do not believe that they are bound to invite any one--black or white--to their private reunions on account of political considerations, they do not attempt to deny that, on an occasion of this kind--a celebration in fact of the success of a political party--it would be most shameful to ostracize the very citizens for whom that party labored and conquered. Therefore it was that they so warmly welcomed, within their gorgeous halls, their colored fellow-citizens, and by so doing won for themselves the approbation of every consistent American. It was one of the most affecting sights of the evening to see these gentlemen of the League, nobly trampling under their feet all base considerations of color and caste, and walking arm and arm with their colored sisters; smelling the exotics; admiring the groups of statuary; sipping the coffee and the punch; pricing the crimson curtains; inhaling the perfumes from the cologne-water fountains; ascending and descending the grand walnut staircase (arranged for this occasion only); listening to the birds in the conservatories; and fixing their hair in the magnificent dressing-rooms. When, in the midst of the festivities the band struck up the beautiful air, "Ask me no more!" the honored guests of color looked at each other with pleasant smiles which seemed to denote a perfect satisfaction. And so, whatever may be said of the friends of the colored race in other parts of the country, it must be universally admitted that the Union League of Philadelphia has done its duty!

* * * * *

Good Reading for Topers.

MR. GREELEY's "Recollections of a Boozy Life."

* * * * *

Sporting Intelligence.

A NEWSPAPER item says that "a Mexican offers to shoot JUAREZ for $200."

That's nothing. TAYLOR, of Jersey City, offers to shoot any man in the world for $2000.

* * * * *

The Favorite Drink of the Canadian Government.

CABINET Whiskey.

* * * * *

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New-York.

* * * * *

The public still labor under misapprehensions of our character and calling. We are in daily receipt of letters of the most heterogeneous description, the task of answering which we are compelled to utterly forego.

We subjoin a few specimens:

"MR. PUNCHINELLO. _Dear Sir_: My wife died yesterday, and would you be so kind as to come and make her will? I would not give you the trouble of coming, but the young woman I intend to marry next is going away to-morrow, and I don't want to leave home. My wife had five hundred dollars which I want left to me, and a feather bed, which you may divide amongst the children.

"Yours in affliction,

"SOLOMON SNIPP."

"SIR: I calculate to give a funeral down at my place shortly, that is, if things go right; but we have no preacher to do the work. Would you please to send us one? Not particular what kind, so long as the work is _sure_. Party is not dead yet, but I make arrangements beforehand as I expect to be insane. Good pay for good work.

"Sincerely,

"P. MCFINIGAN.

"P. S. Do preachers warrant their burials?"

"DEAR MR. PUNCHINELLO:--You were so good as to prescribe a hot pitch plaster for the baby's mouth. Next day I took the prescription to your office, but failed to get it made up, as the devil, they told me, was busy. Will you please inform me when you will be at leisure? Meanwhile baby yells.

"Yours truly,

"C. PUGSBY.

"P.S. _Later_. Mrs. PUGSBY says if I apply that plaster she will go insane. True, she does not understand fire-arms, but then I should be afraid to drink any coffee for a month. In the meantime, if the baby keeps on, I shall go crazy myself; so there is likely to be a casualty somewhere. What's to be done? Shall I bring the child to you?

"C. P."

_Answer_. At your peril. Go crazy and shoot it; then we will go crazy and turn counsel for the defence. The result will probably be that you are handed over to the ladies to be kissed into reason; but if you would rather be hung, you must do the shooting over in New-Jersey.

* * * * *

"BEAUTIFUL SNOW."

Circumstances having rendered it probable that the dispute respecting the authorship of the poem "Beautiful Snow" may shortly be revived, PUNCHINELLO takes this opportunity of setting the public right on the subject, and silencing further controversy regarding it for ever.

It is the production of Mr. PUNCHINELLO, himself; was composed by him so long ago as July, 1780, and copyrighted in August of the same year. It may be asked how the idea of snow-flakes happened to occur to him in July. That question is easily settled. The day was sultry; thermometer 98 deg. in the arbor. Drowsed by the sultry air--not to mention the iced claret--Mr. PUNCHINELLO posed himself gracefully upon a rustic bench, and slept. Presently the lovely lady who was fanning him, fascinated by the trumpet tones that preceded from his nose, exclaimed: "Beautiful Snore!" This was repeated to him when he awoke, and hence the origin of the poem.

* * * * *

Fish Culture.

The Grand Duke ALEXIS, of Russia, proposes to come to these shores and inspect the American system of fish culture. With this end in view, he will, of course, be the particular guest of Gen. GRANT, and will, no doubt, be surprised to find that our principal FISH is a cultivated man. But he will better understand our FISH system by witnessing its operations in Spanish and Canadian waters, as also in those of Sault St. Marie.

* * * * *

Linsey-Woolsey.

The regular troops for the Canadian Red River Expedition have been supplied by Gen. LINDSEY, and are commanded by Col. WOLSLEY--a fact oddly co-incidental with the reported flimsy character of the expedition, so far as it has gone.

* * * * *

* * * * *

Bivalvulor Intelligence.

It is stated that the clams along the Stratford shore are dying by thousands of a malignant disease, which a correspondent of the Bridgeport _Standard_ calls "clam cholera." This is a sad c'lamity for the people of the Stratford shore.

* * * * *

The Fifteenth Amendment.

The appointment of colored postmasters in Maryland may be all very well; but PUNCHINELLO would like to know whether the Post-office authorities intend to revive the custom of Blackmailing.

* * * * *

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

Comedy personified, in Mr. CLARKE, has now reigned at BOOTH'S for nearly six weeks. During that time there has been a perceptible change in the metaphorical atmosphere of the house. The audience no longer wears the look of subdued melancholy which was once involuntarily assumed by each mourner for the memory of SHAKSPEARE, who passed the solemn threshold. The ushers no longer find it necessary to sustain their depressed spirits by the surreptitious chewing of the quid of consolation, and are now the most pleasant, as they were always the most courteous, of their kind. Persons have even been heard, within the past week, to allude to BOOTH'S as a "theatre," instead of a "temple of art;" and though the convulsions of nature which attend the shifting of the scenery, and cause castles to be violently thrown up by volcanic eruptions and forests to be suddenly swallowed by gaping earthquakes, impart a certain solemnity to the brightest of comedies, still there is a general impression among the audience that BOOTH'S has become a place of amusement. And in noting this change PUNCHINELLO does not mean to jeer at the former and normal character of BOOTH'S. BEETHOVEN'S Seventh Symphony, DANTE'S Inferno, JEFFERSON'S Rip Van Winkle, and EDWIN BOOTH'S Hamlet are not amusing, but it does not follow that they are therefore unworthy of the attention of the public, which is pleased with the rattle of De Boots, and tickled with the straw of Toodles.

FOX vs. GOOSE is a three act comedy in which Mr. CLARKE last week made his audience laugh as freely as though the tomb-stones of all the Capulets were not gleaming white and awful in the lamplight of the property-room; or, at all events, would be gleaming if any body were to hunt them up with a practicable lantern. The opening scene is the tap-room of an inn, where Mr. FOX FOWLER, an adventurer, is taking his ease and his unpaid-for gin-and-milk.

_Enter Landlord, presenting his bill_. "Here, sir, you've been drinking my beer for several years, and now I want you to pay for it."

_Fox_. "My friend! why ask me to pay bills? Do you not perceive that I wear a velvet coat? And, besides, even if I wanted to pay I could not until my baggage, which I gave to an expressman ten years ago, shall reach me. It will probably arrive in a month or two more."

_Landlord_. "Here comes Sir GANDER GOSLING. I'll complain to him of your conduct."

(_Enter Sir Gander_.)

_Fox_. "My dear Sir GANDER. Allow me to embrace you."

_Sir Gander_. "I don't know you. I'm not my son JACK."

_Fox_. "But I am Jack's dearest friend. I have saved him from drowning, from matrimony, from reading the _Nation,_ from mothers-in-law, and all other calamities mentioned in the litany."

_Sir Gander_. "Describe him to me, if you know him so well."

_Fox_. "He is tall, dark, slender, and quiet in manner."

_Sir Gander_. "My dear fellow he is short, fat, light, and noisy. I am convinced that you know him. Permit me to pay your bill, lend you money, and tell you all about our dear JACK'S intended marriage." (_He pays, lends, and narrates accordingly. A terrific rattling of dishpans simulates the arrival of a train. Sir_ GANDER _departs and_ JACK GOSLING _enters._)

_Fox_. "My dear JACK, allow me to embrace you."

_Jack_. "I don't know you. I'm not my father."

_Fox_. "But I am your father's dearest friend. Sit down and have a bottle of wine, and tell me all about ROSE MANDRAKE, your intends bride. 'Rose! Rose! the coal black Rose!' as MILTON finely remarks." (_They sit down and_ JACK _immediately gets very drunk, thereby affording another proof of the horribly adulterated condition of the liquor used on the stage, which infallibly intoxicates an actor within two minutes after it is imbibed. [Let the Excise authorities see to this matter.] Finally_ JACK _falls, and the curtain immediately follows his example.)

Critical Young Man, who reads all the theatrical "notices" in the Herald in the leisure moments when he is not selling yards of tape and ribbon_. "I don't think much of CLARKE. He ain't half the man that NED FORREST is. There ain't a bit of spontanatious humor in him. Them San Francisco Minstrels can beat him out of sight."

_Accompanying Young Female Person_. "Yes, I think so, too. I hate to see a man act drunk. It's so low and vulgar. I like pretty plays, like they have at WALLACK'S."

_Respectable Old Gentleman_. "PLACIDE--BLAKE--BURTON--"

_Every Body Else_. "Well, this is real humor; I haven't laughed so much since I heard BEECHER preach a funeral sermon."

The second act takes place in the house of Major MANDRAKE. Fox has successfully assumed the character of JACK GOSLING, and is having a pleasant chat with the family, when the gardener enters to inform the Major that a flock of crows is in sight.

_Major Mandrake_. "I love the pleasures of the chase. Bring my gun, and I will shoot the crows." (_He goes out, and shoots_ JACK, _who is climbing over the gate. Re-enter Major and men carrying_ JACK.)

_Major_. "Alas! I have missed the crow over the cornfield, and lost the crow over my shooting which I would otherwise have had. Also I have shot a man out of season, and the sportsmen's club will prosecute me."

_Jack_. "I am not dead, though my appearance and conversation might induce you to think so. My name is JACK GOSLING. The chap in the velvet coat is an impostor."

_Major, Fox, and other dramatis persons_. "Away with the wretch! He himself is the impostor. Call a policeman who will club him if he makes no resistance."

JACK is dragged away, but perpetually returns and denounces his rival. He is bitten by suppositious dogs cunningly simulated by stage carpenters, who remark "bow wow" from behind the scenes. He is cut by ROSE MANDRAKE, and also by rows of broken bottles, which line the top of the wall on which he makes a perilous perch, not having a pole or rod with which to defend himself against the dogs. He is challenged by Fox and seconded by Miss BLANCHE BE BAR in naval uniform. Finally he takes refuge in the china closet, and hurls cheap plates and saucers at his foes. With the exhaustion of the supply of crockery, the act naturally comes to an end, and, as frequently occurs in similar cases, the curtain falls.

_Comic Man_. "Why does CLARKE, when he slings china at the company, remind you of the Paraguayan war? Of course you give it up. Because he carries on a war on the Plate. Do you see it? Crockery plates and the river Plate, you know. Ha! ha!"

And two ushers, reinforced by a special policeman, drag the miserable man away, and lead him to MAGONIGLE'S private room, there to be dealt with for the hideous crime of making infamous jokes in BOOTH'S theatre. He is never seen again, and so the Philadelphia _Day_ loses its brightest ornament.

The third act consists of a duel between JACK and FOX, each of whom is too cowardly to fight. They therefore follow the safer example of rival editors, and swear and scold at each other. At last a small millennium of universal reconciliation takes place, and the usual old comedy "tag" ends the play.

(Parenthetically, why "tag?" Does it receive this name because its invariable stupidity suggests those other worthless commodities "rag" and "bob-tail," which, outside of theatres, are generally associated with the name.)

And every body goes away murmuring of the genial humor of CLARKE, the magical violin of MOLLENHAUER, the elegance, convenience and comfort of the theatre, the matchless memory of BOOTH'S Hamlet and Iago, and the golden certainty of the coming of Rip Van Winkle. And every body is supremely satisfied, and says to every body else, "This theatre needs only a company, to be the foremost theatre of either continent."

MATADOR.

* * * * *

Remarks by Our Stammering Contributor.

The up-town theatrical sensation is, we hear, produced "regardless of expense." We had reason to think that its managers would show more Frou-frou-frugality.

* * * * *

* * * * *

COMIC ZOOLOGY.

THE MONKEY TRIBE.

Of this genus there are countless varieties, differing widely in the cut of their monkey jackets, as the untravelled American naturalist will doubtless have observed on traversing his native sidewalk. The educated specimens met with in our cities are upon the whole well Organized, and appear to have music in their soles. For its feats _a pied_, the tame monkey is indebted to a Piedmontese who accompanies him.