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[Illustration Vol. I. No. 16.]
SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1870.
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THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD,
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* * * * *
THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD.
AN ADAPTATION.
BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.
CHAPTER X.--(_Continued_.)
The Pond at Bumsteadville is sufficiently near the turnpike to be
readily reached from the latter, and, if mentioned in the advertisement
of a summer boarding-house, would be called Lake Duckingham, on account
of the fashionable ducks resorting thither for bathing and flirtation in
the season. When July's sun turns its tranquil mirror to hues of amber
and gold, the slender mosquito sings Hum, sweet Hum, along its margin;
and when Autumn hangs his livery of motley on the trees, the glassy
surface breathes out a mist wherefrom arises a spectre, with one hand of
ice and the other of flame, to scatter Chills and Fever. Strolling
beside this picturesque watering-place in the dusk, the Gospeler
suddenly caught the clatter of a female voice, and, in a moment, came
face to face with MONTGOMERY and MAGNOLIA PENDRAGON.
"A cold and frog-like place, this, for a lady's walk, Miss PENDRAGON,"
he said, hastily swallowing a bronchial troche to neutralize the damp
air admitted in speaking. "I hope you have on your overshoes."
"My sister brings me here," explained the brother, "so that her constant
talking to me, may not cause other people's heads to pain them."
"I believe," continued the Reverend OCTAVIUS, walking slowly on with
them, "I believe, Mr. PENDRAGON, your sister finds out from you
everything that you learn, or say, or do?"
"Everything," assented the young man, who seemed greatly exhausted. "She
averages one question a minute."
"Consequently," went on Mr. SIMPSON, "she knows that I have advised you
to make some kind of apology to EDWIN DROOD, for the editorial remarks
passing between you on a certain important occasion?" He looked at the
sister as he spoke, and took that opportunity to quickly swallow a
quinine powder as a protection from the chills.
"My brother, sir," said MAGNOLIA, "because, like the Lesbian Alcaeus,
fighting for the liberty of his native Mitylene, he has sympathized with
his native South, finds himself treated by Mr. DROOD with a lack of
magnanimity of which even the renegade PITTACUS would have been
ashamed."
"But even at that," returned the Gospeler, much educated by her remark,
"would it not be better for us all, to have this hapless
misunderstanding manfully explained away, and a reconciliation
achieved?"
"Did AESCHYLUS explain to the Areopagus, after he had been unjustly
abused?" asked the young female student, eagerly. "Or did he, rather,
nobly prefer to remain silent, even until AMEINIAS reminded his
prejudiced Yankee judges that he had fought at Salamis?"
"Dear me," ejaculated the Gospeler, gasping, "I only meant--"
"I defend my brother," continued MAGNOLIA, passionately, "as in the
Antigone of SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA defends ORESTES; and even if he has no
PYLADES, he shall still be not without a friend in the habitation of the
Pylopidae."
"Upon my soul!" murmured the Reverend Mr. SIMPSON, "this is a dreadful
state of things."
"I may as well confess to you, sir," said MONTGOMERY, temporarily
removing his fingers from his ears, "that I admire Miss POTTS as much as
I'm down on DROOD."
"He admires her," struck in his sister, "as ALCMAN, of Sardis, admired
MEGALOSTRATA; and, in her betrothal to a Yankee, sees another SAPPHO
matrimonially sacrificed to another CERCOLAS of Andros."
"Mr. PENDRAGON," panted the Gospeler, "you must give up this
infatuation. The Flowerpot is engaged to another, and you have no
business to express such sentiments for another's bride until after she
is married. Eloquently as your sister--"
"I pretend to be no MYRTIS, in genius," continued MAGNOLIA, humbly. "I
am not an ERINNA, an AMYTE, a PRAXILLA, or a NOSSIS; but all that is
intellectually repugnant within me is stirred by this treatment of my
brother, who is no PHILODEMUS to find in Mr. DROOD his PISO; and
sometimes I feel as though, like another SIMONIDES, I could fly with him
from this inhospitable Northern house of SCOPAS, to the refuge of some
more generous DIOSCURI. In the present macrocosm, to which we have come
from our former home's microcosm, my brother is persistently maligned,
even by Mr. BUMSTEAD, who may yet, if I am any judge, meet the fate of
ANACREON, as recorded by SINDAS; though, in his case, the choking will
not be accomplished by a grape-stone, but by a clove."
"Well, well," said the Reverend OCTAVIUS, in a faint voice, "I shall
expect you to at least meet EDWIN DROOD half-way in a reconciliation,
Mr. PENDRAGON, for your own sake. I will see that he makes the first
advance."
"Generous and dear tutor!" exclaimed MONTGOMERY, "I will do anything,
with you for my guide."
"Follow your guide penitently, brother," cried his sister, pathetically,
"and you will find in him a relenting--POLYNICUS. Whatever we may feel
towards others," she added, catching and kissing the overpowered
Gospeler's hand, as they parted company, "you shall ever be our chosen,
trusted and only PSYCHOPOMPOS[A]."
Holding his throbbing head with both his hands, as he walked feebly
homeward, the worn-out Gospeler noticed a light streaming from Mr.
BUMSTEAD'S window; and, inspired by a sudden impulse, entered the
boarding-house and ascended straightway to the Ritualistic organist's
rooms. BUMSTEAD was asleep upon the rug before the fire, with his
faithful umbrella under his arm, when Mr. SIMPSON, after vainly
knocking, opened the door; and never could the Gospeler forget how, upon
being addressed, the sleeper started wildly up, made a futile pass at
him with the umbrella, took a prolonged and staring drink from a pitcher
of water on the table, and hurriedly ate a number of cloves from a
saucer near an empty lemon-tea goblet over the mantel.
"Why, it's only I," explained the Reverend OCTAVIUS, rather alarmed by
the glare with which he was regarded.
"Sit down, my friends," said MR. BUMSTEAD, huskily; himself taking a
seat upon a coal-scuttle near at hand, with considerable violence. "I'm
glad you aroused me from a dreadful dream of reptiles. I sh'pose you
want me to seeyouhome, sir?"
"Not at all," was the Gospeler's answer. "In fact, Mr. BUMSTEAD, I am
anxious to bring about a reconciliation, between these two young men.
Let us have peace."
"If you want to let's have peash," observed the other, rather vaguely,
"why don't you go fishing whenever there's any fighting talk, shir! Such
a course is not, you'll Grant, unpresidented."
"I believe," said Mr. SIMPSON, waiving the suggestion, "that you
entertain no favorable opinion of young PENDRAGON!"
Reaching to a book on the table, and, after various airy failures,
laying hold upon it, Mr. BUMSTEAD answered: "This is my Diary,
gentlemen; to be presented to Mrs. STOWE, when I'm no more, for a
memoir. You, being two clergymen, wouldn't care to read it. Here's my
entry on the night of the caucus in this room. Lish'n now: 'Half-pash
Ten.--Considering the Democratic sentiments of the MONTGOMERIES
PENDRAGONS, and their evident disinclination to vote the Republican
Ticket, I b'lieve them capable of any crime. If they should kill my two
nephews, it would be no hic-straordinary sh'prise. Have just been in to
look at my nephews asleep, to make sure that the PENDRAGONS have put no
snakes in their bed.' Thash is _one_ entry," continued Mr. BUMSTEAD,
momentarily pausing to make a blow with the fire-shovel at some
imaginary creature crawling across the rug. "Here's another, written
next morning after cloves: 'My nephews have gone to New York together
this A.M. They laughed when I cautioned them against the MONTGOMERIES,
and said they didn't see it. I am still very uneasy, however, and have
hurriedly pulled off my boots to kill the reptiles in them. How's this
for high?" Mr. BUMSTEAD fell into a doze for an instant, and then added:
"I see the name 'J. BUMSTEAD' signed to this. Who'sh _he_?--Oh! i'mushbe
myself."
"Well, well," commented the slightly astonished Gospeler, "whatever my
be your private opinions, I ask you, as a matter of evident public
propriety, and for the good of everybody, to soften Mr. DROOD toward Mr.
PENDRAGON, as I have already softened Mr. PENDRAGON toward Mr. DROOD.
You and I must put an end to this foolish quarrel."
"Thashis so." said Mr. BUMSTEAD, with sudden assent, laboriously gaining
his feet to bid his guest good-bye, and rather absent-mindedly opening
the umbrella over his head as he fumbled for the knob of the door. "You
and I musht reconcile these four young men. Gooright, shir. Take a
little soda-water in the morning and you'll be auright, shir."
On the third day after this interview, Mr. BUMSTEAD waited upon Mr.
SIMPSON with the following note, which, after searching agitatedly for
it in his hat and all his pockets, he finally found up one of his
sleeves: "_My dear_ JACK:--I am much pleased to hear of your
conversation about me with that good man whom you call 'the Reverends
Messieurs SIMPSON,' and shall gladly comply with his wish for a make-up
between PENDRAGON and myself. Invite PENDRAGON to dinner on Christmas
Eve, when only we three shall be together, and we'll shake hands. Ever,
dear clove-y JACK, yours truly, EDWIN DROOD."
"You think Mr. PENDRAGON will accept, then?" said the Gospeler.
Mr. BUMSTEAD nodded darkly, shook hands, bowed to a large armchair for
Mrs. SIMPSON, and retired with much stateliness.
[Footnote A: The Adapter refers confidently to any Southern female novel
of the period for proof, that sentimental Magnolian school-girls always
talk, or write, everything educational, except good English, when
conferring with their deafened masculine friends.]
CHAPTER XI.
A PICTURE AND A PARCEL.
Behind the most sample-roomey, fire-insuranceish, and express-wagonized
part of Broadway, New York, yawns a venerable street called Nassau;
wherein architecture is a monster of such hideous mien that to be hated
needs but to be rented, and more full-grown men stare into shoe-stores
and shirt-emporiums without buying anything than in any other part of
the world. Near the lower end of this quaint avenue rises the
Post-Office, sending aloft a wooden steeple which is the coffin of a
dead clock, and looking, altogether, like some good, old-fashioned
country church, which, having come to town many years ago to see its
city cousins, and been discouraged by their brown-stone airs, retired,
much demoralized, into a shady by-way, and there fell from grace into a
kind of dissipated cross between Poor-House and railroad depot. To reach
this amazing edifice, with too much haste for more than a momentary
glimpse of its harrowing exterior, and to get away from it, with a speed
as little complimentary to the charms of its shadow, are, apparently,
the two great and exclusive objects of the thousands swarming down and
up the narrow street all through a day. Some twenty odd boot-shops, all
next-door-but-one to each other, startlingly alike in their despondent
outer appearances, and uniformly conducted by embittered elderly men of
savage aspect--seem to sue in vain from year to year for at least one
customer; and as many other melancholy dens for the sale of exactly the
things no one but a madman would want to buy while on his way to a
Post-Office, or from it, appear to wait as hopelessly for the first
purchaser. There are, too, no end of open-air dealers in such curious
postal incidentals as ghastly apples, insulting neck-ties, and
impracticable pocket-combs; to whom, possibly, an unwholesome errand boy
may be seen applying for a bargain about once in the lifetime of an
ordinary _habitué_ of the street, but whose general wares were never
seen selling to the extent of four shillings by any living observer.
Still, with an affront to human credulity of which only newspapers are
capable, it has been declared, in print, that there are bootmakers and
apple-women of Nassau who continually buy choice up-town corner-lots
with their profits; and, if it may be therefrom inferred that the other
trades of the street do as incredibly well, it were wise, perhaps, to be
further convinced that people have a well-established habit of
stealthily laying in their new raiment, fruit, and toilet articles while
going for their business-mails, and at once relinquish all earthly
confidence in the senses obstinately refuting the theory.
About half-way between end and end of Nassau street stands a row of what
were modest dwelling-houses in the remote days when the city was under
the rule of the Americans, but are now only so many floors of law
offices. Who owns them is not known; for proprietors of real-estate in
this extraordinary highway of antiquity are never mentioned in public
like owners in any other street; but they are shabby, dreary,
hopeless-looking old piles, suggestive of having, perhaps, been hurried
and tumbled through musty law-suits scores of times, and occupied at
last by the robber Law itself for costs. On a certain dark, foggy
afternoon in December, one of the seediest of the fallen brick
brotherhood presented a particularly dingy appearance, as the gas-lights
necessitated by the premature gloom of the hour gleamed dimly through a
blearing window-pane here and there. The house still retained the narrow
street-door, hall-way, and abrupt immediate stairway of its earlier
days; and had, too, the old-style goodly single brown stone for a
"stoop," along the front fall of which, in faded white block letters, as
though originally done with a stencil-plate, appeared the strange
device:
S--T--1860--X.
Whether this curious legend referred to the sweets or bitters of the
tenement's various experiences; whether it meant Subjected To 1860
'Xecutions, or Sacrificed to 1860 'Xecutors, or Sentenced to Wait e'en
Sixty 'Xigencies, did not bother the head of Mr. DIBBLE, who came in
from Gowanus every morning to occupy his law-office up-stairs, and was
sitting thoughtfully therein, before a grate fire, on the dull, wintry
afternoon in question.
Severely unostentatious was that office, with its two ink-stained desks,
shelves of lettered deed-boxes, glass case of law-books in sheep, and
vellum-covered reading-table in the centre of the room. Its prompt
lesson for the visitor was: You are now in the Office of an old-school
Constitutional Lawyer, Sir; and if you want an Absolute Divorce,
Obtained for No Cause, in Any State; No Publicity; No Charges; you must
step around to a certain newspaper sanctum for your witnesses, and apply
to some other legal practitioner. In this establishment, sir, after you
have left your measure in the shape of a retaining fee, we fit you with
a suit warranted to last as long as you do. We cut your pockets to suit
ourselves, but furnish you as much choler as you can stand. If you are a
pursey man the suit will have no lack of sighs for you; if you are thin,
it will make your waste the greater.
Mr. DIBBLE'S usual companion in this office was his clerk, BLADAMS, who
generally wrote at the second desk, and, consequently, was a person of
another deskscription. A politician in former days--when he was known as
Mr. WILLIAM ADAMS--this clerk had aspired to office in New York, and
freely spent his means to attain the same. His name, however, was too
much for his fortune. Public credulity revolted from the pretence that a
WILLIAM ADAMS had come from Ireland some years before, on purpose to
found the family of which the later candidate of the same name claimed
to be a descendant; and, after an election in which he had spent the
last of his money, he was "counted out" in favor of a rather hod
character named O'GLOORAL. Thus practically taught to understand the
political genius of a Republic, which, as gloriously contrasted with any
effete monarchy ruled by a Peerage, looks for its own governing class to
the Steerage, Mr. WILLIAM ADAMS subsided impecuniously into plain BILL
ADAMS and a book-keepership in dry goods; and was ultimately blurred
into BLADAMS and employment as a copyist by Mr. DIBBLE, to whom his
experience of spending every cent he had in the world, and getting
nothing in the world for it but wrinkles, seemed felicitously legal and
almost supernaturally qualifying for law-writing. BLADAMS was about
forty years old, though appearing much older: with a slight cast in his
left eye, a pimply pink countenance, and a circular piece of unimproved
property on top of his head.
"Any news?" inquired Mr. DIBBLE, as this member of the once powerful
American race entered the office and still grasped the edge of the door.
"I saw Mr. DROOD across the street just now," was the answer.
"And what did he say, BLADAMS?"
"That, in turn he'd see _me_ across the street; and here he is,"
returned the clerk, advancing into the room.
"Ah, my dear Mr. EDWIN, glad to see you!" exclaimed Mr. DIBBLE, rising
to his feet and turning about to greet the new comer. "Sit down by the
fire; and don't mind the presence of Mr. BLADAMS, who was once a
gentleman."
"Thank you, old man, I don't know but I _will_ take a glow with you,"
said EDWIN, accepting a chair and throwing aside hat and overcoat.
"You're just in time to dine with me," continued the lawyer. "I'll send
across to a restaurant for three stews and as many mugs of ale. We must
ask Mr. BLADAMS to join us, you see; for he was once a decent man, and
might not like to be sent out for oysters unless asked to take some."
"If they're the small black ones you generally treat on, I'd rather be
excused," grumbled Mr. BLADAMS, involuntarily placing a hand upon his
stomach, as though already paying the penalty of such bivalvular
hospitality.
"Order saddle-rocks this time," was the reckless response of his
employer. "Mr. EDWIN is so rarely our guest that we must do the
princely. You'll tell them, BLADAMS, to send plenty of crackers, and
request the waiters to keep their fingers out of the stews while
bringing the latter over. I've known waiters to have their finger-nails
boiled off in time, by a habit of carrying soups and stews with the ends
of their digits in them."
The clerk departing to order the feast, Mr. DIBBLE renewed his attention
to Mr. E. DROOD, who had already taken his ball from his pocket and was
practicing against the mantel.
"I suppose you are on your way to Bumsteadville, again, Mr. EDWIN, and
have called to see if I have any message for my pretty ward over there."
"That's the ticket," assented EDWIN, making a neat fly-catch.
"You're impatient to be there, of course?" assented Mr. DIBBLE, with
what might have passed for an attempt at archness if he had not been so
wholly devoted to squareness.
"I believe the Flowerpot is expecting me," yawned the young man.
"Do you keep plants there, Mr. EDWIN?"
"The whole thing is a regular plant, Mr. DIBBLE."
"But you spoke about a flowerpot."
EDWIN stretched his feet further toward the fire, and explained that he
meant Miss POTTS. "Did she say anything to you about the PENDRAGONS,
when you saw her?" he inquired.
"What _are_ pendragons?" asked the lawyer, wonderingly.
"One of them is a schoolmate of hers. A girl with some style about her."
"No," said Mr. DIBBLE, "she did not.--But here comes BLADAMS."
(_To be Continued_.)
* * * * *
OUR AGRICULTURAL COLUMN.
MEMORABILIA OF "WHAT I KNOW ABOUT FARMING."
To avoid the charge of plagiarism I have concluded to adopt the above,
as the title of the following statistics.
Many persons have trifled with the subject of agriculture; notably among
these may be mentioned the "self-made" man and the innocent who has been
abroad. I propose to attack the subject seriously, and to lay before the
readers of PUNCHINELLO information which will make their hair (if it be
of a carroty hue,) stand on end, and will certainly appease their
curiosity.
There are several ways in which agriculture may be attacked. 1st,
Scientifically, (but then you are likely to get to Lie-big.) 2nd,
Theologically, (and a vast deal of theology may be picked up on a
well-located farm, for do we not find "sermons in stones"?) 3d,
Humorously, (which is the way in which the aforesaid "self-made" man
advances to it,) and 4th, Practically, (in which way, I think, that
innocent gets at it.) Now, when, during the war, I was building forts at
the Dry Tortugas, my overseer informed me that a fort was most easily
taken when attacked on all sides, so I have concluded to pitch into
agriculture from every quarter. Therefore my remarks may be considered
as made in a Scientific-theological-humorous-practical sense.
Postponing a description of soils to a future time, I proceed to
elucidate, first,
CORN.
Of this vegetable there are five varieties, viz.: hard corn, soft corn,
chicken corn, pop corn, and Indian corn. It is a very useful production,
as it affords occupation to a large number of itinerant persons, who
have peculiar ways of sub-soiling it, some by a knife, some by washes,
and some by plasters. This vegetable is generally planted early,
(shoemakers having a monopoly of the cultivation,) and, curiously
enough, the larger the crop the less the owner likes it. Rainy weather
is good for this vegetable, as a damp day swells it very rapidly. It
requires a deep soil, for you cannot have any corn without at least one
foot, though two feet will probably produce a much larger crop.
The best treatment for hard corn is to subsoil it with a hatchet, though
a little judicious paring is good; soft corn sometimes does the pairing
itself, though not judiciously. Soft corn is sometimes called sweet
corn, on the principle, "sweet are the uses of adversity." The variety
of this vegetable cultivated by roosters is called chicken corn, though
no farmer can give a reason therefor, as no chicken ever had anything to
do with a shoe, unless, perhaps, "shoo-fly." Corn cultivated by an old
maid is irreverently called pop-corn. Why Indian corn should differ from
white corn, I have never yet been able to discover. It flourishes under
the same circumstances, and requires the same kind of care, and, except
in color, cannot be distinguished from the white. Probably RED CLOUD
could have told us the difference, if he had been properly interviewed.
Scientifically, corn is _tumorus in footibus_; theologically, it is a
"condemned" nuisance; humorously, you can't plant your foot without
planting corn; practically, everybody treads on it.
LOT.
* * * * *
TO MANAGERS OF RAILROADS.
PUNCHINELLO invites the attention of managers of railroads, generally,
but especially that of the President and Directors of the Morris and
Essex Railroad Company, to his new Patent, Portable, Folding, Tripodular
Derrick, with self-elongating extensions. The purposes to which this
machine may be applied are too numerous to mention, but it will be found
particularly useful for lifting up, and expelling from the cars, the
heavy commuters of the railroad just referred to, who decline to pay
double fare for stopping at Newark, and who sometimes even object to
being ejected for non-payment of said perfectly fair fare.
In practical operation this machine is at once simple and complete. It
is also refined, elevating, symmetrical, and chaste. By properly
adjusting it, a railroad conductor can easily lift a recalcitrant
passenger, and project him through one of the windows of the car,
(provided said window is large enough to admit of such exit,) into any
selected pool, or pond, or quagmire, or any other sort of mire, of the
miasmatic salt meadows, with the produce of which Morris and Essex stock
is so satisfactorily salted down.
Recent experiments upon pinguid and repudiating commuters, in the old
way of bullying, coaxing, and "soft-sawdering," have proved to be utter
failures. The united forces of a conductor and two brakesmen of the
Morris and Essex R.R. proved, in a late instance of a member of the Fat
Men's Club, quite inadequate to the ejection of that person from the car
of which he occupied a conspicuous fraction. The obese fellow declined
to have his ticket punched, and defied the officers of the road to come
on and punch his head. It is for the expulsion of such blisters upon the
social cuticle that PUNCHINELLO'S invention has been specially devised.
As it is intended solely for the use and benefit of railroad managers,
no further particulars respecting it will be supplied to recalcitrant
commuters unless their applications are accompanied with Four Dollars,
respectively--the regulated price of one year's subscription to
PUNCHINELLO'S witty, plastic, unrivalled, intermittent, hebdomadal
publication. Should no purchase of the patent in question be made by the
directory of the Morris and Essex Railroad, however, PUNCHINELLO will
then meet contingencies by condensing the machine, reducing it so much
in size that a commuter may easily carry one in his waistcoat pocket, to
be ready, when necessary, for extracting an insolent conductor out of
his boots; or, should the occasion arise, for the immediate evulsion
from office of the autocratic President of the concern, himself.
* * * * *
LOCAL.
The enterprising reporter who discovered an earthquake in the eastern
districts of the city, a few days since, has been obliged to employ a
snake-charmer to extract from his left boot an immense anaconda that had
effected a lodgement there.
[Illustration: FOLLOWING SUIT.-A Possible Sort of Reta(i)liation.
"GOOD GRACIOUS, ARABELLA! DO BE CAREFUL--YOU'VE GOT YOUR FOOT ON THE
GENTLEMAN'S TRAIN!"
"WELL, HOW CAN ONE HELP IT, WHEN THOSE ABSURD TRAINS ARE ALWAYS GETTING
UNDER ONE'S FEET?"]
* * * * *
THE FEMALE GENTLEMAN.
A MOURNFUL BALLAD OF THE PERIOD.
A certain fair young maid,
With mind on progress bent,
Could not endure the way
Reformers mostly went.
Those rights she wished to gain,
Which SUSAN A. expects,
But still she would not lose
The softness of her sex.
If at a station she
For cars did wait in vain,
She would not stride about,
And "damn" the hapless train.
"With men I'll equal be,"
She said, "if women can;
But still I must become
A female gentleman.
Hereafter I shall try
Polite and kind to be;
And treat all gentlemen
As gentlemen treat me."
One morning, in a stage,
She rode to STEWART'S store--
A young man soon got in,
And sat down near the door.
Then, leaning towards the man,
While passengers did stare,
She smiling said, "Good sir,
Shall I pass up your fare?"
The young man started back
As if he had been shot.
Said he, "This dollar bill?
I think I'd rather not!"
The poor girl sat abashed,
While every one began
To have suspicions of
This female gentleman.
One morning, hast'ning home,
It rained--to her regret,
And just before her walked
A young man getting wet.
She stepped up to him quick,
And said, with courtesy rare,
"It's raining, sir; will you
My large umbrella share?"
The young man sprang aside,
Beneath a leaky spout;
The water from his clothes
Ran like a stream for trout.
His hand upon his watch
He clapped, and cried, "Don't stop!
Just travel on, I say,
Or I shall call a 'cop!'"
This sort of thing she tried
In many such a case;
But every time she met
Deplorable disgrace.
At last she said, "Oh, ho!
My plan it is no use;
When I politeness show
I always get abuse.
The day is yet to come
When female courtesy
Is wanted by the men;
No more of it for me!"
She straight sought SUSAN A.,
And joined her haughty clan
And tried no more to be
A female gentleman.
* * * * *
OUR PORTFOLIO.
DEAR PUNCHINELLO: Having been appointed by the Committee of the
"American Universal Protection Society," of which you are chairman, to
call upon our honored Secretary of State, with the view of obtaining
protection for the interests of our merchants who are now endeavoring to
create a trade in ant-eaters with the inhabitants of the Chickadiddle
Islands in the South Sea, I have the honor to submit the following
synopsis of what took place at the interview:
I found Mr. FISH in a state of partial exhaustion, owing to the unusual
heat of the weather, and the perusal of a fresh batch of compliments
forwarded to him by his particular friend in New York, the Hon. C.
ANDERSON DANA.
Three negresses stood about him with palm-leaf fans, endeavoring to
accelerate the movement of the atmosphere in the very close room to
which the privacy of his feelings sometimes drives him. He was reclining
upon a sofa when I entered, but immediately arose and motioned me to
take a seat. I had scarcely occupied a comfortable looking stuffed
back-piece of furniture, when a pricking sensation in the region of my
coat-tails caused me to resume the perpendicular with amazing rapidity,
and, upon looking down, I observed the point of a pin protruding through
the cushion of the chair. The Secretary did not lose his gravity, but
very heartily apologized for what he called the "little _contretemps_."
The smarting sensation made me a little lax in speech, so that I did not
choose my words with that regard for the majesty of a Premier which I
came there at first disposed to do. He listened to my recital of the
application with perfect equanimity, until I mentioned the name of
PUNCHINELLO. At this point he colored slightly, bit his nether lip, and
exclaimed, with evident vexation:
"What! the editor of a sheet that has dared to speak of me as a "scaly"
fellow, and hold my policy up to the laughter of the nation?"
"Pardon me, Mr. Secretary," I interposed, with all the courtesy of
manner I could muster, "but I think you mistake the motive of Mr.
PUNCHINELLO in applying that description to a person so august."
"Fire and fiddlesticks, sir! do you take me for a fool?"
I pressed my hand in the vicinity of the fifth rib on my left side, and
solemnly asseverated that I did not.
"It makes no difference," added the great man, in an excited tone. "I
can entertain no application coming from such a quarter."
"But will you permit me to explain what Mr. PUNCHINELLO intended by the
epithet 'scaly'? It was only his peculiar way of saying that an officer
appointed to administer the responsible duties of your august office
could not impartially do so without the 'Scales'--of Justice."
"Nonsense!" shouted the petulant old mackerel; and now I began to feel
"sassy."
"But you must admit, Mr. Secretary, that there is a great deal of sense
in Mr. PUNCHINELLO'S nonsense. He shoots folly as it flies, and yet it's
a great pity that he can't shoot all the fools."
"I am impressed with the truth of that remark, from the fact of his
sending you here," was the reply, delivered with an air and tone
intended to be witheringly sarcastic. That was enough for me, so I
dropped my gloves (metaphorically speaking) and went for him.
"Old man!" says I, "you were lifted out of the quiet of a happy home and
placed here, not so much by the act of our illustrious President as by
the dispensation of a mysterious Providence. 'Way down in Skewdunk they
held prayer-meetings when they heard that news, and a good many of them
haven't stopped praying yet. But only last week, let me tell you, Deacon
DRYASDUST wrote to General GRANT'S father, saying: 'JESSE, old boy,
there's no use praying for that venerable porgy any longer; he's worser
nor ever, and bound to drag LYSSES down to the bottom with him.' The
kind old man wrote back to the Deacon 'That's so, GILL, as sure as
pickled souse ain't pickled salmon.' And now, Mr. Secretary, I come to
the point. What old GILL DRYASDUST and JESSE GRANT think of you is what
the people think; and when PUNCHINELLO shoots at you an arrow now and
then, dipped in fun, and winged with satire, he does it in no spirit of
surly bitterness or spleen, but with a heart full of hope and charity,
and as much as says to the people of the United States, in your hearing:
'My good friends, keep on praying for brother FISH, and don't give him
up because some think him a "scaly" fellow.'"
Thus finishing this mingled admonition and explanation, I dropped a
single tear upon the figure worked in the carpet, and gloomily quitted
the apartment.
The next morning I found a letter upon the table, at my lodgings,
bearing the imprint of the Department of State, and couched in these
terms:
Dear Sir: Instructions have been sent from this Department to
Admiral POOR, commanding U. S. Squadron in Cuban waters to
extend to American merchants engaged in establishing a trade in
ant-eaters with the inhabitants of the South Sea Chickadiddle
Islands, every protection consistent with his remaining where he
now is.
Very Respect'y,
HAMILTON FISH.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
* * * * *
COMIC ZOOLOGY.
ORDER, REPTILIA.--WORMS.
Worms are invertebral animals; in other words, they are backboneless,
but nevertheless some of them--for example the prickly caterpillars--are
full of spines. In Texas they call a chicken-snake seven feet long a
worm; but it would be just as reasonable to call the Rosse Telescope an
opera-glass.
The common earthworm is the most unfortunate variety of the species.
Beaks are always after him, and he is often taken up early in the
morning while lying perdue in the moist meadow grass. Earthworms are a
good bait for trout, but the highflyers of the gentle craft consider it
infra dig to dig them. Impaled on a hook, they are as lively as if on a
bender, and if thrown, in this condition, into a stream or pool, the
fish are apt to mistake them for their natural Grub. When quickly drawn
from the liquid element by the angler, they sometimes come up with a
single drop of water hanging to them, and sometimes--though more
rarely--with two Gills. The question whether the hook hurts them, or
only tickles till they squirm, is one of those knotty problems that
physiologists have failed to solve. COWPER, the poet, had a tenderness
for the earthworm. So also had IZAAK WALTON, who recommends that he be
skewered "tenderly, as if you loved him."
From the cradle to the grave, and even after we are deposited in the
latter, our bodies are liable to be infested with worms. There is the
trichina spiralis, which really exists, although the German
pork-butchers denounce the story as a "pig lie;" the ordinary intestinal
worm, which disports itself, eel-like, in the Alimentary Canal; and the
tape worm, of two varieties, one of which performs its circumlocutory
antics in the human stomach, and the other in the government Bureaux at
Washington. The worm that feeds on the cold meat of humanity, although
the most insignificant of reptiles, has one attribute of Diety. It is no
respecter of persons, and would as lief pick a bone in a royal vault as
in POTTER'S Field. All flesh is the same to it--unless saturated with
carbolic acid. It is said that all living things are propagated--that
the process of creation ceased ages ago; yet it is quite certain that
the worms known as maggots may be created by a blow. The most detestable
of all the vermicular tribe is the Worm of the Still, which is a sort of
caterer for the worm which never dieth--a reptile of another sphere,
that has never been described in Natural History. The only worm
recognized as edible by civilized man is produced in Italy and vulgarly
known as wormy-chilly. The subject is susceptible of further expansion,
but having run it into the ground, we here break it off.
* * * * *
DUBIOUS ENGLISH.
The Paris correspondence of one of the city dailies has the following
terse, but somewhat equivocal statement:
"Another murder of a brutal character is reported."
At the first glance one is inclined to wonder who the "brutal character"
was, whose violent death is thus referred to. On consideration, however,
it is possible to arrive at the conclusion that no particular character
is pointed at, but only a murder designated as brutal.
It is a way with newspaper correspondents to characterize some murders
as brutal, with the view, probably, of distinguishing them from
benignant murders, which, everybody knows, are of such frequent
occurrence.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A RURAL VIEW OF THE CENSUS.
_Farmer's Wife. (Who mistakes our Artist for a Census-taker.)_ "LOOK A'
HERE, MISTER, IF YOU'VE COME ALONG TO TAKE THE _senses_ OUT OF ME AND MY
OLD MAN, I'LL SET THE BULL-DORG ON TER YER!"]
* * * * *
WESTERN NOMENCLATURE.
Closely allied to the study of history is that of the origin of names,
and there is in it a wonderful fascination. The following brief
statements will show from what a trifling incident a name may be
derived--especially a Western name.
Previous to 1831 there was nothing on the site where Chicago now stands
but an Indian post, which was driven into the ground at the corner of
Madison and Dearborn streets. The present post-office marks the spot and
commemorates the old name. About the year 1740 a party of adventurous
young ladies, belonging to a Michigan boarding-school, came across the
lake on an enormous raft. When they had bathed in the pellucid stream
that now pours its crystal waters into the lake, they started to return,
when a bad chief known as LONGJON referred to the departing maids as a
She-cargo. Hence the name.
There is another version of the origin of the city's name, which states
that a good Indian, named UNG KELL TOE BEE, when about to immolate a
fowl for his dinner on one occasion, repented of his murderous intent
and resolved to go hungry, exclaiming, as he let it fly, "Chicky-go!
there is room enough in the world for thee and me." The first story,
however, is best authenticated.
Michigan, as is now well known, is only a corruption of the name of
Father MIKE EGAN, an Irish Catholic priest, who lived and toiled, and
was finally sacrificed by the Indians, on the site of the present city
of Detroit.
Iowa is only a euphonious adaptation of the symbolic letters I.O.A.,
which the Surveyor-General of the United States, in 1835, ordered to
have inscribed on all the quarter-section posts in that territory. The
initials stood for the familiar Latin maxim, _Idoneus omnium audaces_,
which, freely translated, means "go in and win." Some emigrants saw the
cabalistic inscription all along the roadside, and they twisted the
initials into a name for their State. It was a happy thought.
The capital of Wisconsin derived its present name from a curious
circumstance that occurred in the time of the mound-builders, hundreds
of years before MCFARLAND went there to live. An architect saved a
woman's life, at the risk of his own, from a savage attack of
bears,--which made her husband furiously jealous. When he came home from
his mound-building, and ascertained what had been done, he sharpened his
trowel and went for the destroyer of his happiness. A medicine-man,
observing his momentary frenzy, grappled with and threw him, crying to
the neighbors, "Mad! ice on!" Ice was applied to his scalp, and the life
of his benefactor was saved. Ever since, the place has been called
Madison.
Milwaukee received its name from an eminent red predecessor of the
pedestrian WESTON. This tremendous strider was called, in his melodious
native tongue, "MILE-WALKEE"--because, to the infinite delight of his
trainer, HOR. SCREELEY--he could make a mile in four minutes, without
breaking.
The name of Superior was quite obscure in its origin, and the solution
only yielded to the most persistent and patient inquiry. Even CHARLEVOIX
does not mention it. It seems that the Chippewas who inhabit the
Southwestern shore of the Lake were formerly more wretched than now--the
squaws more ragged, and the pappooses more Squalléd; and when CARVER
came through he established a charity soup-house near the western
extremity. The beggarly braves flocked in with their gingerbread-colored
broods, and for months the benevolent sutler who was left in charge of
the establishment stood on a barrel-head and shouted daily to the
assembled thousands, "Soup! Here y'are!" This was taken up and corrupted
by the ignorant aborigines, and finally became Superior.
It is not necessary to say that Kenosha was named after the Western game
of "Keno," or that Winnipeg is a deduction of the pleasant game of
cribbage.
The origin of the name of Selma will be obvious to all thoughtful
readers who remember that it has been a notorious slave market.
Michillimackinac is an Indian name, and originated in a touching
dialogue between two little Pottawattomies in the dead of winter. One
baby complained that he was hungry, not having had a drop of dinner,
when the other calmly replied, "My-chilly-ma-can-ac-commodate-you." The
juvenile benevolence was so wonderful that it rendered the phrase
immortal, and the whole of it was made the name of a county in Michigan.
Of late years, however, this irreverent generation has lopped off the
last few syllables, spoiling the harmony of the expression, and entirely
sacrificing its affecting moral.
* * * * *
[Illustration: MODERN MATRIMONY.
STERN WIFE. "NOW, JOHN. I HAVE TO LUNCH WITH SOROSIS AT THREE. AND SO I
LEAVE YOU TO WALK ABOUT THE SQUARE WITH THE BABY UNTIL I COME FOR YOU AT
FIVE."]
* * * * *
HIRAM GREEN AT SARATOGA.
THE HOTELS--FASHIONS--SPRING WATER--AND CLUB HOUSE.
The season when everybody who can sport a 3 story trunk full of store
close, and a fine assortment of Californy diamonds, and rush to a
waterin' place, has got heer.
The venerable head of a family pegs away at biziness all winter, and
when summer comes his wife and dorters pile off to Niagary, Longbranch,
Saratogy, or somewhere else, where they make the Govenor's calf skin
wallet cry for quarter, as they rag out in their most celubrious manner.
I'm stoppin' heer at Saratogy, baskin', as it were, in the melliflous
sunshine of earth's fairest flowers.
That the reeders of PUNCHINELLO may understand how the season is openin'
heer, let an old Stateman, who has served his country for 4 years as
Gustise of the Peece, consine his thoughts and observashuns to paper.
The season is openin' rather encouragin'.
The only openin' I know of that can beat it, was openin' clams at a
clam-bake down at Coney Iland.
With Hotel proprieters heer it is a good deal like eatin' clams.
When a person has lickt out the meet of a clam he throws the shell away.
So it is with the a-4-sed Hotel Keeper. When he licks all the sweet meet
out of his border's calf-skin pocket-book, he has no further use for the
empty shell, and consekently chucks him out of the winder as lively as
Wall street hussles out a lame duck.
The biggest houses heer are the Congris and Union.
These institushins are to _terry fermer_, what NOER'S Ark and the grate
Eastern was to commerce.
These taverns, bein' mammoth, perserve their mammothness by chargin'
mammoth bord bills. Ten cents a breth and fifteen cents a sneeze, any
ordinary member of Congress can stand; but when a wooden tooth-pick
costs you Twenty-five cents, and a cleen napkin half a dollar, a visitor
size for an app'intment as Revenoo Officer in a good fat whiskey
district.
There is quite a heep of people at Congress haul.
This bildin' is surrounded by piazas, where the fare sects slam out,
araid in gushin' apparel and stoopin' and tremblin' under their lode of
false hair, like an Irishman under a hod full of bricks.
In this stoopin' posture their hands hangs down, and the picter seen in
nateral history, of a Kangeroo trying to stand ereckt, gives us what is
called the Greshun bend.
When the fair bell strikes an attitood, with fore paws danglin' at
half-mast, to be admired by a dandifide lot of Tommynoodles of the
opposite sects, the opinion of this ere cort is, that insted of Greshun
bend, it had orter be called Kangaroo bend.
I notis that old wimmin heer, as well as young ones, sport pretty
gorgeous harnesses. Last evenin' I was passin' a fashionable House heer
and I saw an anshient femail who was fixed with ribbins, satins, etc.
She looked like an advertisement for some glass factory, for she was
covered with a small waggin lode of glass diamonds.
She held a poodle purp in her lap. On her head was a lose nite cap from
which ringlets and spit curls was danglin', like a lot of fish-worms
crawlin' over the top of a bait box.
Thinks I, she was the old woman of the period and no mistake.
It is fashinable heer to go to the Springs and swill down Congress water
by the gallon--called Congress water from the fact that it will take the
kinks out of a Congressman's hair, mornin's, after indulgin' in a
shampain supper, and any Inn Keeper heer, altho' they theirselves may
have several diseases hitcht onto them, will assure yon that "Saratogy
waters is the waters of life," and is "a sertain cure for any disease
ever invented."
From my own observashuns it takes a person about 3 days to begin
relishin' Saratogy mineral water. The first day it tastes like the juice
of an old soked bute.
The second day it reminds you of brine out of an old musty pork barrel.
The third day it tastes like See water near a New York dock.
Afterwards it begins improvin' until bimebye I would as leave have it as
Gin and Tansy.
All the Springs heer are well patronized. Neerly as much so as the bars
at the Drinkin' Saloons.
The High Rock Spring is a first-class curiosity.
A good comfortable income could be got out of a quarry which prodooced
such stuns as the one from which High Rock water flows.
One of _the_ institushuns of this summer resort is Mister MORRISSEY'S
Club-house.
The Hon. JOHN is more of a success at Congress hauls, Saratogy, than he
is at the Halls of Congress, Washington, D.C.
When other members git on their high-heeled butes at Washington,
debatin' about the admishun of another State, JOHN'S voice is silent.
When debatin' the grate public question of
"Heads I win, tails you lose,"
JOHN is the most elokent man in Saratogy.
If any individual don't beleeve what I say, let him buck agin Mr. M.,
and he will diskiver that the product of his experience will "Bite like
a Jersey skeeter, and sting like one of Recorder HACKETT'S sentences."
As my wife's second cuzzin lives heer, I shall be heer occashonly
doorin' the summer seesun, a visitin' her.
I like it heer as a visitor--at Mrs. G's. cuzzin's house, altho', in her
eccentricity, she sumtimes doesn't have dinner while I am around, and
often she locks the door when I am out after dark.
I sometimes think her family would enjoy theirselves full as well if I
wasent there.
Still, that is their look-out, not mine.
A nawin' sensashun withinto me announces the hour of dinner. I must
close.
As NAPOLEON remarkt, when he herd that the _Plebiscotum_ had come out
ahead:
"_Rest a cat in pase, Hunc e doreo_" which is a furrin tongue.
Ewers,
HIRAM GEEEN, Esq.
_Lait Gustise of the Peece_.
* * * * *
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
_Bach_.--A courtship should continue at least two weeks before an offer
of marriage is made.
An engagement should not last longer than from two to five days;
marriage for an indefinite period.
We will answer your inquiries about divorce in our next.
_X.Y.Z_.--JACK is the common abbreviation for the name JOHN.
_R_.--If a man has a number of small children, (waifs,) would it be too
thin to call him a wafer?
_Answer_.--Are the children male or female?
_Cris Pin_.--We do not know that the Chinese have ever been
distinguished as manufacturers of shoes. It is possible, however, that
they excel in making slippers, as they are known to be a very slippery
people.
_Macaroni_.--You are right in supposing that the queer little birds by
which our parks have been enlivened for some few years past are
improperly called English sparrows. That they are German is obvious from
the fact of their preferring a Diet of Worms to any other kind of Grub.
_Canadian_ asks us three questions.--1st. Who were the MACDONALDS, when
Canada was discovered? 2nd. Who were the CARTIERS? 3d. Is the Government
of Ontario a Liberal Government?
_Answers_.--1st. The name is Italian; the founder of the family was
MACRINUS DIONALDI, (who came over with CARTIER,)--which became corrupted
by political influence to MACDONALD.--2nd. JACQUES CARTIER was the
discoverer of Canada, but the present CARTIER is no relation of
his.--3d. The term "Liberal," in connection with the Ontario Government,
is merely a figure of speech, as there is no liberality in the concern,
which is "run" by SANDFIELD MACDONALD on a cheap plan.
_A.B.C_. inquires how it is that the editor of the _Sun_ has allowed
that journal to become a vehicle of vituperation, respecting Messrs.
A.T. STEWART, RIDLEY, and other leading merchants of this city. To this
query we reply that the spots on the Sun are increasing so in number and
magnitude as to baffle our telescopic investigations. A suggestion in
the case is furnished, however, by the fact that the columns of the
_Sun_ are not lighted up with advertisements from any of the
establishments against which it has been discharging its meteoric
sneezes. And this may account for the dearth of the milk of journalistic
courtesy in the cocoa-nut of the DAN PHOEBUS who "runs the machine."
* * * * *
"YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS."
The _Standard_ editorials.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "GONE TO GRASS."
_Edwin. (Popping the question_.) "WILL YOU, DEAREST ANGELINA, SAY, WILL
YOU--"
_Farmer. (Popping up his head_.) "GIT EOWT O' MY MEADOW, YEOU TWO--WILL
YEOU?"]
* * * * *
OUR CORRESPONDENCE BUREAU.
As everybody knows, PUNCHINELLO absolutely beams with benevolence toward
the human race, and a further proof of his disinterested and
self-sacrificing generosity is about to be displayed. PUNCHINELLO has
been pained to notice the wretched material with which, for want of a
well-posted New York correspondent, the country editor of the period
(amusing _sui generis_) is forced to fill his scanty columns under the
much-displayed caption, "Our New York Letter.--From Our Own
Correspondent." To obviate this difficulty, the following interesting
and important items of New York news, which are believed to have never
before been published, are gratuitously furnished, and the copyright
which applies to the rest of the paper is generously taken off from this
particular column.
PUNCHINELLO is forced to admit, with due humility, his unfitness to
embellish his letters with the gorgeous and pyrotechnic lavishness of
"fancy writing" which graces the letters of the New York Correspondents,
but he is sure that the items which follow are infinitely more truthful
than are the most of the statements furnished by those highly erudite
and ornamental gentlemen. And in infusing such an element of comparative
truthfulness into the current statements about New York city,
PUNCHINELLO experiences the proud satisfaction of having done his duty.
_Items_.--The recent unpleasantness between HUGH HASTINGS and THEODORE
TILTON has culminated in a duel with howitzers, in which the former had
his head carried away, and the latter had both legs shot off.
The fact has leaked out, that the recently reported BEETHOVEN Centennial
Jubilee was a myth. There is no such building in New York as was
described, and no concerts have taken place. The reports in the local
papers were written by unscrupulous Bohemians in the pay of the
musicians whom they puffed.
The New York police are notoriously inefficient. They are generally to
be found lying drunk across the sidewalk, and 623 carriages are sent
around every evening to gather them up.
HORACE GREELEY has joined the Red Stocking Base Ball Nine.
* * * * *
A NOTE FROM THE ORCHESTRA.
I am a musician. I constitute one twenty-fourth of the orchestra at
BOOTH'S. I nightly blow the drum. Thus much by way of introduction to
the dear public, whose devoted servant I am, preliminary to a recital of
my woes. Whoever has been inside the theatre named has probably noticed
the peculiar construction, or rather location, of the enclosure wherein
we manipulators of melody are penned up. I know not what cause or
provocation the architect of BOOTH'S Theatre may have had, but certain
it is that he entertains a horrible spite against musicians. He may have
been distracted by diabolical hand-organs, or driven wild by bungling
buglists, but why should he include worthy and unoffending artists in
his hatred? The revenge of a BORGIA was not more terrible or cruel than
that of this architect. He has put the orchestra so far below the stage
that no part of the latter is visible to the poor musicians.
Fearful that some unusually tall one should catch an occasional glimpse
of the apex of some equally tall performer, he has made the front of the
stage project, like an overhanging Table Rock, above the devoted
orchestral heads. And there we sit, like a row of human Stoughton
bottles, having eyes, yet seeing not the plays that we hear enacted. I
am disgusted. I am mad about it. It is a way of "coming it over us,"
that is contemptible.
What I want to know is, how can I derive any satisfaction from HAMLET'S
death when I don't see him die? How can I sit quietly there and see the
audience go into convulsions over Major WELLINGTON DE BOOTS, when I can
by no possibility see the point of the joke?
Alas! There are no convulsions for me! Every night for two weeks has the
Huguenot slain the hectoring HECTOR, and I remain in blissful (no, not
blissful) ignorance of the manner of his taking off. It has gone far
past endurance, and I humbly trust that the public, or Mr. BERGH, or
somebody imbued with philanthropic feelings, will do something for that
suffering body--BOOTH'S orchestra.
A SUFFERER.
* * * * *
People are dying of cholera in New York at the rate of 353 a day. Six
emigrant ships arrived this morning, having on board 374 cases of
small-pox, 685 of cholera, and 897 of yellow fever. No alarm is yet
felt, however.
* * * * *
A MIGHTY MODERN JEHU.
We learn from newspapers that Mrs. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN drives a
splendid four-in-hand turnout at Newport.
Well, Mr. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN has been driving four-in-hand, too, for
years past, and the names of his horses-are Fenianism, Buncombe, GEORGE
FRANCIS TRAIN, and Blatheremskite.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SEASONABLE.
THE HAIRY CATERPILLAR STYLE OF HEAD-DRESS.]
* * * * *
THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
[Illustration: 'O']
Of a certainty Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS made a mistake when he fancied himself
a dramatist. Possibly he may have inherited some small share of the
poetical talent of his well-known maternal grandfather,--the author of
"Divine and Moral Songs for Children," but he has shown no sign of the
eminent histrionic genus which has made his elder brother, Mr. WENDELL
PHILLIPS, so popular a Reformer. Still, if he was bent upon writing
plays he should have confined himself to dramatizing the more quiet and
domestic of Dr. WATTS'S poems. "How doth the little busy bee"--for
example--could have been turned into quite a nice little five-act drama,
had Mr. PHILLIPS condescended to grapple with so simple a subject. But
no, he must indulge in battles, and Sepoys, and Butchers of St.
BARTHOLOMEW, and dancing girls and things. He will write sensational
plays, let the consequences be what they may. Hence we are made to
suffer from _Not Guilty, The Huguenot_, and similar harrowing
spectacles. The _Huguenot_, which has just died a lingering death at
BOOTH'S Theatre, is an aggravated case of dramatic misdemeanor on the
part of the author, since it is wantonly stretched out into five acts,
when it could properly be compressed into three. A strict compliance
with the old maxim, "_De mortuis nil desperandum nisi prius_," (I
haven't quite forgotten my Latin yet,) would oblige me to refrain from
abusing it, now that it is happily dead; but, as another proverb puts
it, "The law knows no necessity," and I therefore can do as I choose.
Here, then, is its corpse, exhumed as a warning to those who may be
about to witness any other of Mr. PHILLIPS'S dramas. I flatter myself
that the disinterested public will agree with me, that if all the
Huguenots were as tedious as Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS'S private _Huguenot_,
the massacre of St. BARTHOLOMEW was a pleasing manifestation of a very
natural and commendable indignation on the part of their much-suffering
fellow-citizens not of Protestant descent.
ACT I.--_Scene, a tavern in the outskirts of Paris_. RENE, _the
Huguenot, is pretending to sleep on an uncomfortable wooden bench. A
drunken villain insults a lovely gipsy_. RENE _gets up and kills him,
and escapes his pursuers by falling over a convenient precipice.
Curtain_.
Mr. WALLER. (_Soliloquizing behind the scene_.) "To-morrow I'll have a
comfortable bench to sleep on, if I have to take MACGONIGLE'S sofa. I
won't play RENE again if I have to lie for twenty minutes on that
infamous board bench!"
COMIC MAN. (_Who is believed to read_ HARPER'S "_Drawer_.'") "You know
WATTS PHILLIPS is a grandson of old Dr. WATTS. Now here's a genealogical
joke. If TOM'S father is DICK'S son, what relation is DICK to TOM?"
ACCOMPANYING FRIEND. "Nephew? niece? mother-in-law?--I give it up!"
COMIC MAN. "I thought you would. Well, he is--Upon my word I forget the
answer, but it's a first rate one. I've got it down at the office,
anyhow!"