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

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

PUCK. LITTLE TOMMY’S TALKS. It’s summer now. I'm awful hot. Some- body take’ off some of my fings. What's the use of *, summer, anyway, ’cept to make people hot? 't like winter much. ‘It’s cold, and the cold makes holes in my mittens where my fingers come froo and get burnt. And my big brover Jim puts snow down my back and burns my backbone. And I always have a cold in my head so big I can’t have any fun unless I have a handkerfish as big as a sheet most, and then I can’t make it go right myself. If 1 was fixing fings, I'd leave out noses when I made little boys. But then after. a while I don’t mind winter, and just as I begin to fink I like it, it goes off oe Tikaow where the'winter goes to; they make it into ice-cream. I swallowed some of it ina late of ice-cream yesterday. Guess it must have been most all January, It nearly froze me up just in the place where I feel good after dinner. My papa doesn’t drink ice-cream. He eats lemonade. ‘The other day I went out walking wiv him. He didn’t want me to go a bit, but I went. He was awful cross. Pretty soon we got to a place where lemonade grows, and we went in. I fought he meant somefing bad, he looked so cross, my papa did. Then he said to the man with a moustache, in his shirt-sleeves, ‘Gimme a lemonade.” Then he looked at me and the man looked at me, and the man said “ Wiv a stick?” and my papa said ‘Yes, wiv a big stick.” I heard ’em, But I made believe I didn’t. And while the man was looking for the stick, and my papa was reading the newspaper, I slipped out just as quiet, out of that place where lemonade grows, and I ain’t going there ever again. So I ran right home, and I told my mama, and I made her promise she wouldn’t let papa be nasty wiv a big stick. She said’she wouldn't. And she didn’t. But when my papa came home I didn’t know what had happened. I fought it was fourferjuly al- ready. I wonder when fourferjuly ’s coming, any- way. My big brover Jim says it won't come till December. I don’t believe him. SAYINGS AND DOINGS. Ms PETER BRAINS SWEENY has dought himself out of further trouble with $400,000 worth of his dead bro- ther’smoney. Thecity thinks thisamount better than nothing, and Mr. Sweeny thinks that he has made a very good bargain. What a bright ex- ample to the immature youth of the city who may have anything to do with future rings: Steal, my good fellows, steal; but mind you steal enough to be enabled to get off scot free, by the payment of $400,000; the remainder you can invest in United States bonds. The war in Europe still drags its slow length along, and people are even beginning to tire of the Hera/a’s elaborate editorials on the subject, and the exhaustive correspondence from its numerous special commissioners at the seat of war— in Ann Street. Even the beautiful war- maps pall upon one. A good square pitched battle on the banks of the Danube will be hailed with delight, and will give the Hera/d an opportunity of sustaining and varying the in- terest in the struggle. If it kills off two or three of its imaginary correspondents, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, so much the better. After the style of the attempted assas- sination of Mr. Stillson in Salt Lake city, a plot should be discovered to kidnap the Herald cor- respondent in the Russian lines. The Sultan, Lord Beaconsfield and Count Andrassy could be detected in the Hera/d’s tent, disguised as Cossacks, for the above nefarious purpose. The excitement created by the news would be intense, and, although it might be contradicted the following day, there are thousands who would believe it; and what more could the great enterprising newspaper desire ? Rapid transit—a meeting at Chickering Hall to demand an explanation from New York's traitorous representatives, who have denied this boon to suffering citizens. But such agitation does very little good. Nearly every man pre- sent had an ‘axe to grind,” being interested in the stock of elevated railroads, or in increas- ing the value of his up-town property. I now almost despair of ever seeing a comprehensive system of speedy transit so long as these cormo- rant horse-car companies [have money enough to bribe our mis-representatives in Albany. The only way to defeat these villainous corporations is to get up some excitement after the manner of the old-fashioned revolutionary Paris barri- cade business, and let citizens get mad enough to tear up the tracks and make a bonfire of the disgusting cars. I refer particularly to the Third Avenue line—although, as far as the selfish policy of the remaining roads is concerned, it is but six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. General Grant is making a right royal pro- ce in England, and we are glad of it. Hum- le citizens who have so often shaken hands with him, can now contemplate their “ flippers” with additional satisfaction, and say to them- selves “ Well, who'd have thought that the same fingers that grasped my hand would have been squeezed by Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales!” And I shouldn't be surprised to learn that some toad-eaters in Washington and else- where have had their hands specially photo- graphed in consequence. I can't congratulate either Kate Field or Olive Logan on their de- scriptions of Grant's reception at ‘‘ Lady Mary ’ Pierrepont’s. They were too labored, and had too much flummery about them. I hear that our New York favorite actors, Warde and Herbert, are now e route to Mon- treal, and are to give the Blue-noses a taste of their quality, with a small but choice company of excellent artists. They purpose producing a series of the best society comedies. Aword on the Custom House, and I’ve fin- ished for the present. Why doesn’t Hayes adopt ‘our advice and give every employé, from Collector Arthur downwards, his walking- papers? Noncof them is to be trusted. Why are the meek though insolent Lydecker, and the gentle Dutcher, or the benevolent Russell, al- lowed to remain? Mr. Hewitt’s experience of Lydecker ought not to be passed unnoticed by Hayes. Make a clean sweep, Rutherford, and put in new men. Never mind to which party they belong. Pan, WONDERS WILL NEVER CEASE. A RATHER transparent puff of a Miss Cum- mings, who tried to play /u/iet, appeared in an evening contemporary. All New York young la- dies, by the way, appear to be playing /u/ie¢now, but often vary the personation by playing the fool better. But Miss Cummings is the most phenomenal, unprecedented, unheard-of, extra- ordinary, remarkable, startling and brilliant /u- 4iet since this much-maltreated character first evoluted ‘out of the head of that howling idiot, Shakspeare. Miss Cummings, we are told, had never seen /u/iet acted, had never played pro- fessionally, only engaged Booth's Theatre at twelve hours’ notice, learned the part in six days, was taken sick the day of the perform- ance, would play notwithstanding, and aston- ished everybody—the press included. The paragraphing admiring friend of Miss Cum- mings, we regret to say, has not been frank— why should he conceal anything? He omitted to tell us that Miss Cummings only learnt her alphabet a few hours before acting, that che’d never been in a theatre, that she was born deaf, dumb, blind and halt, that she didn’t know un- tila minute after the curtain fell that there was sucha play as “Romeo and Juliet;” she had never heard of Shakspere, but was under the im- pression he was a car-conductor or a milkman; yet in spite of all these disadvantages she achieved such a wonderful success that we shall not look upon its like again in a hurry. PUCK’S PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE. BY OUR OWN HERALD, Mrs. Mutpoon doesn’t eat onions. Epamrnonpas’s shirts buttoned behind. MADAME DE MAINTENON wore a bustle. PLEASANTON never nursed a dear gazelle. Wave Hampton is solid with the darkeys. Stittson used to barber oysters for a living. Hosoxen and Hail Columbia both begin with H. Carouina reed-birds should be cooked in plumbago. SecreTARY EvarTs can finish a sentence in a single day. Tennyson has had another sonnet in a dif- ferent place. PeorLe in the Indian Territory are eating succotash with a spoon. Peruaps there is no better paper than the Hornellsville Fa/adium. ‘THe Summer roses fade because Eli Perkins combs his hair with a bootjack. TueEopore Parker, the theologian, was not the ex-Governor of New Jersey. Ben Butter is not an Irish soldier in Amer- ica, but he knows all about him. GarrFieELp wears his own hat—except on the rare occasions when he does not. TuRKEY-GoppLers don’t wear turbans; but you can gobble turbans in Turkey. ‘THE statement that Brigham Young drinks tea with a fork is positively contradicted. Susan B. ANTHONY denies emphatically the report of her engagement to Constantine. WE are informed, on the best of authority, that Phil. Sheridan has not had twins since. ‘A Goop sauce for the gander is made of pie- plant and boot-tops, boiled in coloquintida, It is positively denied that Olebillallen is en- gaged as leading juvenile at Wallack’s next sea- son. Genera. Locan wears a vest. Consequently he has something to pull down, when neces- sary. Ben Wape is fond of cutting trees. He must be a musical genius, because he’s always Chopin. Cucumpers will be trimmed with pink barége, and gored down both sides, with two flounces at the back. Loncrettow will summer at Cohasset. He: will be accompanied by a boiled shirt in a brown paper parcel. Wuy should the spirit of mortal be proud, when the man who lives the highest up in the house perspires most ? Cuartes Francis Apams denies that he called Gail Hamilton a kangaroo. The kanga- roo insisted on a retraction. Don’t wear a blanket under your linen dus. ter, even if you haven't got a shirton. It is much better to wear a porous plaster.