Puck — April 1877 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SAYINGS AND DOINGS, BLANK sheet of paper, pen and ink, is all one wants to immortalize one’s self. It’s curious, if Shakspeare, Addison Byron or Macaulay jot down a few sentences, their words live; and yet I have just the same, if not superior materials, and write a better hand. Perhaps brains and fancy have something to do with it. Talking of brains, I think, after all, that Anna Dickinson has a fair supply for a woman.” Did you read her “open letter?” Well done, Anna, for exposing that Bayard Josh, who manages the Eagle Theatre. This is, as Artemus Ward says, “‘sarkasm.” He reminds me of one of Gulliver's Yahoos. Bergh, I sup- pose, would call him one of the lower animals. He is not the Hart that can feel for another. You may run a respectable show, if you will, Mat the scent of “variety” will hang ‘round it still, But chimney and street-cleaning are what Josh is eminently fitted for. In. these his genius would have full sweep by having con- genial occupation. Tweed to him is as Hyperion to a Satyr. What a surprise is the confession of the great chiel amang ye, who has been “taking notes.” What virtuous indignation! What assurances of innocence! ‘The ex-boss is like a terrier in a rat-pit with the rats at bay. Woodin never re- | ceived any money for anything. Oh dear, no! Just as some directors and officers of the New Jersey Mutual deny having shared that collapsed company’s assets, and now there is some Noyes | about it, as there was at two theatres last | week, The stage again. I am nothing, if not thea- trical, and, perhaps, little at that. Notwith- standing there is a President in the White House, the election of whom we are told would make the country a regular paradise, green- backs and even specie are scarcer than ever, | especially in the green-room. One manager | last. week turned Topsy-turvey with “ Uncle | ‘Tom’s Cabin,” at Lexington Avenue Opera House, in one night, and then Mr. Seilhamer was “‘disappointed,” and disappointed the pub- | lic and Miss Adelaide Lennox. By the way, according to Mr, Seilhamer, these bloated thea- tre-managers are as aristocratic as the Czar; they won't produce good plays, not even with Mr. Seilhamer’s endorsement. The mention .of Czar suggests the fight be- tween Russia and Turkey. ‘The average A rican knowledge of this “unpleasantness about equaled by the average cow’s acquaint- ance with Sunday. But gunmakers pocket the Russo-Turkish cash, and say with Virgil arma virumque cano (arms and the man I sing), and politely hand the Russian a new and improved six-shooter, and to the Turk a nice Remington rifle, and bid them blaze away at each other to their hearts’ content. Uncle Sam, consequently, does not complain of this state of affairs, but scores of people contribute to the Hera/d’s complaint-book. I have opened a complaint-book, and will not conceal its contents from the readers of Puck. Herewith are some of the complaints: Tyranny oF Taltors. I owe my tailor $85, and until paid he re- fuses to make me a new spring-suit. Don’t you think this very unreasonable of him? A. SPONGER. Down wiTH THE Monopouists. ‘My income is at present ni/. Is not this too bad; while Vanderbilt is rolling in wealth? If I stated my case, do you think he'd present me with a million or two? LOAFER, A younc lady writes: ‘I have much fault to | find with papa. I want five new dresses and | two new bonnets—he won't let me have them. | the Sensitive Soul revive. | jubilant—but he smirks. PUCK. Our carpet in the parlor is much the worse for | wear. Argument is useless. ‘Tell me what | to do.” P.S.—Is there any law to abolish parents? “Equatity” wants to know why he has to hang on for dear life to straps in horse-cars to get up-town, while those Wall street fellows go home in coupe's. “ Mecuanic” says: “In the Bowery I can get | a good dinner for twenty cents. At Delmo- | nico's I’m told they charge sometimes twenty | dollars. Why do people submit to such ex- | tortion?” | “ BILt Svxes,” writing from Sing Sing, thinks | it too bad that he should have got five years for | “cracking a crib,” when those insurance officers | for helping themselves to the society’s funds, get off so easily. The Grand Dukes Alexis and Constantine have dined at the White House with President Hayes. I don’t know if there was any Rhine wine on the table, or if Hayes wore gloves, or if Mrs. Hayes's dimple had a great effect on their Imperial Highnesses—but I do know that the following was the ménu: yge A Ia train oil low-candles 4 la long wicks. de Polar Bear & la icebergs, protocol russia leather, Doge 4 la Danichefls. Everything was served 4 la Russe; even to the Russian baths their Imperial Highnesses indulg ed in after they had partaken of the seasonable | delicacies. The Marine Band very properly, in honor of the distinguished sailor guests, and as a tribute to the chief products of their country, played the Zar-and- Tallow. Aristarchi Bey, strange to say, wasn’t there. Pan. | THE SENSITIVE SOUL. = QIGHE Sensitive Soul is so thorough a hum- | aL) bug that he deceives even himself, “So > shrinking! so modest!” say his friends. He shrinks that he may be brought forward. He depreciates himself that others may praise him. Precisely because he believes himself a very superior person, he is not willing to join his companions on equal terms. He feels that he is not wanted here or there, because urgings and solicitations are grateful to his vanity. Wherti three or four have started for an un- Bere walk, he is the man who lags be- others may have asked him out of mere com- ind, at the last moment, thinking that the pliment, that they do not really enjoy his so- ciety, and, until he is assured that he is the | most genial fellow in existence, cannot be pre- vailed upon to budge a step. At a social party, he is the man who retires to a corner when mirth is loudest. On these occasions he is at first supposed to be ill. He refutes the supposition with meaning emphasis. Has some ‘one offended him? he is asked. “Not in the least!” . He begs the others will go on with their enjoyment, and not notice him. Should he be taken at his word, he would de- part in high dudgeon, disguised under the veil of meek humility, leaving remorse and discom- fiture behind. But who would be so cruel as to take the Sensitive Soul at his word? In general, the company concentrate their forces to draw him from his retirement. Their attention be- come riveted upon him. The soothing oint- ment of flattery is poured into his wounds. Anxiety reaches fever-heat, and the spirits of He becomes—not This expresses his maximum of pleasure. It has been observed that the Sensitive Soul is subject to his deepest fits of depression when some favorite is brought into general notice, that his 6on mots and impromptus are dragged in by the ears, and have the air of having been manufactured over night, and that he is chary of praise, except where it is pal- pal absurd. By these tokens may the genuine uumbug be known and distinguished from the very inferior article. Puckerings. Tue author of From Dawn to Noon ought to be made an A. M. by one of our colleges. “THe Benders — humph !"—Detroit Free Press. Of course, all benders do; but what's the use of spelling it with a final 47 A PETITION will be presented to the French Assembly, asking for the enactment of a law to prohibit youths under sixteen from smoking in public places. It should be entitled, ‘An act to promote the further utilization of the wood- | shed.” Ir is said that Miss Neilson sheds tears so copiously while playing Juliet, that Romeo is seriously thinking of appearing in an oil cloth suit, as a sanitary precaution. ‘TaLMaGE lectures on ‘Creditors;”—or, as | he prefers to put it, ‘The People We Meet.” Harvarp students are discussing the ques- tion, “ Does the mind ever sleep?” “When the Soldene season is terminated, they will, perhaps, try to solve the problem by actual experiment. By the social laws of China, all persons of the same surname are cousins. What a pity that | this beautiful regulation couldn’t have been adopted in our own country last year, when so many people were going over old family records in search of Philadelphia cousins, to whom they might pay a month's visit! | Apropos of the collapse of the “Crown of Thorns” at the Eagle, Anna Dickinson might say before, that she was “nothing if not ical;” but now she is critical and nothing else. AN exchange sa “It takes a mental effort to pay a gas-bill with a genial look.” Of course it does, but it doesn’t equal the effort, physical, mental and otherwise, to pay it with green- | backs. “Mk. Jones, don't you think women are more sensible than men? asked Miss Smith. And Jones, after scratching his favorite bump for a moment or two, said: ‘Why, certainly, they are—they marry men, and men only marry women.” Miss Smith beat a hasty retreat. Unper the head of ‘For and About Women,” the Evening Telegram says: ‘In Mexico three girls are. born to one boy.” ‘These Mexican boys must be of singularly precocious disposi- tion; but even then we are puzzled at such wholesale births to them. Boys, under ordinary circumstances, do not become mothers; but apparently they manage these things differently in Mexico. Jnswers for the Hurinus. A.B. C.—We feel for you. It may grate harshly on your sensi- tive soul to hear that your poem will pot suit; but it would grate tore harshly on our sense of duty, if we published it without Ting it. We decline this contribotion: but send us some other thar docan’t make calm rhyme with farm, or belle with belle, and when you set out to surprise us in a postscript next time, don’t invite attention to your postscript at the beginning of your letter. M. V.—Your *+Swell”” well the ranks of thiogs un- weet Ya Teme Stet” oom, 5A seal the rae ee; to the rest of our readers. comichooks.