Mr. PUNCHINELLO has often thought with what melancholy feelings the
naughty boys must gaze upon a fine grove of growing birches; but what
pangs would a knowing child experience upon finding himself in Randolph
county, Illinois, where they raise twelve bushels of castor-oil beans to
the acre! Of what depths of juvenile wretchedness and precocious
misanthropy is that crop suggestive! We see it all--the anxious
parent--the solemn doctor--the writhing patient--the glass--the spoon!
Howls like those of a battle-field, only less so, fill the air. The
wretched victim of pharmacy, conquered at last, gives one desperate gulp
to save himself from strangulation, and all is over! Ye who remember
your boyhood's home! tell us if there was any joke in all this!
* * * * *
THE GREAT MODERN O MISSION.--The English Mission.
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[Illustration: THE LITERARY PIRATES.
SUGGESTED BY BIARD'S PICTURE, AND SHOWING THE PIRATICAL ROVER "HARPY"
SPRINGING A TRAP UPON THE GOOD SHIP "AUTHOR" IN A FAVOURABLE TRADE WIND.]
"THE HARPY."
With literary ventures stowed
As full as ship can be,
The good ship "Author" holds her way
Over the fickle sea;
Now sings the wind, and, all serene,
The ripples forth and back
Lap lightly round her gleaming sides
And whiten on her track.
Far westward, on the line of blue
That meets the pearly[1] sky,
There looms up large a stranger sail,
A sail both broad and high;
And as she near and nearer draws
She hovers like a bird,
And strains of music from her deck
Upon the air are heard.
Now closer draws the stranger sail--
Are sirens they who hang
About the quivering cordage with--
Hallo! what's that?--bang! bang!
The trap is sprung, the siren ship
Runs up the sable flag--
It is the pirate "Harpy," and
She takes the "Author's" swag!
[Footnote 1: A famous foreign writer offered us £500 to print this Pearl
Street, but we wouldn't do it for double the money.--[ED.]]
* * * * *
WEAPONS THAT TAMMANY HALL CAN NEVER BE TAKEN BY.--SHARPE'S Rifles.
* * * * *