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

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

PUCK. iF AN APOSTLE OF TEMPERANCE ¢ pis NOGGINS has been a temperance lecturer for twenty years. Peleg was a Uy lear gutter-drunkard for fifteen years. baat was a beast. Peleg’s beastliness is, however, his stock in trade. Metaphorically, Peleg, while on the platform, still rolls in the gut ter, and then throws the mud at the “rummies.” By “‘rummies,” in Peleg Noggins’s vocabulary, are meant all people, no matter how respect- able, who are able to ‘drink a glass of wine without getting’drunk. This Peleg cannot do. He tries, at intervals of two years, and falls. Being at such times cither in the retirement of the gutter or the poor-house under an a/ias, the world hears little of Peleg’s failings. On the recurrence of the Temperance Revival, once in three or four years, Peleg is assisted to his feet by a few zealous ‘‘Friends of Temperance,” dressed up in a cast-off suit of black, one size too large as to coat, and one too small as to trowsers, and started out again on his mission of “preaching Temperance.” As an additional attraction, he is pce a magic-lantern and a series of highly-colored views of Jerusalem, and inflamed and diseased stomachs caused by Rum. ‘The last commences with a magnified tape-worm, and closes with an awful case of spontaneous combustion. ‘The temperance en- tertainment is sandwiched with Peleg’s old tem- perance speech and gutter meditations. Pele; is a profuse and constant tobacco-chewer an expectorator. This accounts for the occasional dirty brownish blotches seen in his views of Palestine Afoot, and which even obtrude them- selves on the inflammatory drunkard’s stomach. ‘That is where Peleg has spit. Because, there is no security for person or cleanliness within a yard of Peleg, in any direction. Peleg is always entertained by the temperance brethren at their private houses. Mrs. Booth, the neat better- halfof Mr. Booth, of Haddam, Conn., declared, last Fall, after Peleg’s stay of two nights at her house, that Peleg was a dirty beast.” CHAPTER II. THE APOSTLE’S EPI: “ Look at me now, my friends, and think of me as I was two years ago, rolling in the gutter, and begging from ruin-shop to rum-shop for a five-cent drink See the difference! See this black coat.” (Lappel spattered with tobacco stains.) ‘See this clean linen.” (More extrait detabac.) ‘‘Now1am clothed, and in my right mind. Temperance does everything for a man. Let Rum alone, and you'll be all right.” (Peleg’s stomach alternates between doses of pills and too much pork.) “Why, a man who drinks ever so little is not in his right mind.” (The disten- sion in Peleg’s cheek is owing to that quid of tobacco, which he never parts with, and cannot live without.) ‘ Rum fills a man full of diseasé.” (Peleg is a martyr to dyspepsia, from the con- stant five cups of hot coffee, seven hot rolls, and a pound of greasy: sausages, for breakfast.) “Rum paints red noses and blotches on peo- le’s faces.” (Peleg’s countenance is pimply and Faagroat scrofula.) ‘ Rum puts the devil into a man’s temper, and turn’s him into a demon.” (Peleg grumbled and growled his first wife into the grave.) “Think, my friends, of the thou- sands of unhappy wives made by Rum.” (Peleg’s second wife got a divorce on the ground of his exacting and irritable temper.) “Why, Rum will make a man starve his wife and children to death.” (One of Mrs. Noggins’s pleas before the court was, that Noggins, when sober, bought nothing but the cheapest, poorest and stalest of meat.) ‘How many poor women have been awfully murdered by husbands under the in- fiuence of drink!” (Mrs. Noggins declared she'd far rather be murdered outright than starved to death by inches on wormy flour and measly pork.) ‘Look at the poor, poor chil- dren who have been abused and neglected, and all through Rum!" (It was Peleg’s custom to knock his eldest boy down with the poker when he didn’t milk the cow clean.) ‘Look at the young girls: that Rum has driven forth outcasts into the street!” (Noggins’s eldest daughter was found wandering and crying at midnight in the Bowery, Mr, N. having shut her out for the night because she was not at home by nine o'clock.) “Look at the rags that Rum always, dresses his worshipers in.” (Noggins’s boy never wore other than his father’s cast-off | clothes in the most prosperous times.) Look at the difference between the miserable, dirty sot and the neat and clean temperance man.” (Noggins’s use of the bath is but semi-occa- sional, and his finger-nails show considerable | “matter out of place.”) ‘And what is every | other virtue, my friends, compared with Tem- perance? Nothing. Do you sce that man walking out of that German Beer Garden? What if he is stout, healthy, erect, broad- shouldered, and scrupulously clean as to skin and linen? What if he does provide well for his family, and do his duty as a citizen anda father? What though he be a lover to his wife, the companion of his children, a gentleman in his own house, even in temper, and considerate | to all? It all goes for nothing. It is worse than naught, my friends, And why? Because he drinks beer! Nightly that doomed man quaffs a mug of ale! Aye, and not only sets this ex- ample to his refined and well-mannered boys and girls, but actually takes them with him to that sink of iniquity, that threshold of perdi- tion, and sets the accursed draught before them! And this he has done for years. What though he was never drunk in his life? What if he does set an example of self-control to his young and tender children? So much the worse. For he will never roll in the gutter, or beat his wife, or be kicked out of doors, or be a metaphorical and physical stench in the nostrils of Community, as | have been. That he may be | as I have been, and hope yet to be from time to time, raised up to serve as a warning and a ter- tible example, and a beacon-light to warn my fellow-beings from the rocks and shoals of In- | temperance!” (Noggins stops amid great ap- plause, and takes a fresh chew of tobacco on the sly, while the “converted” press forward and sign the pledge.) Prentice Mutrorp. SUMMER RESORT NOTES. Ciam-cHowbER is the order of the day at | WINNEBAGO. Deer-sHooTiNG is the favorite sport around the trackless wilderness of Fire IsLanp. Bears | are occasionally seen. ‘Tue. croquet-ball is already roliing-like a box- | wood apple of discord, at the dainty feet of the belles of Sour: Popunx. ARRANGEMENTS are being made to have the ApIRONDACKS covered with mosquito-netting to insure the comfort of visitors. Tue first drummer of the season has arrived at Garrison’s. The rest of the army will turn up as soon as business is a little more brisk. , Hackensack is looming up on the horizon of fame, and bids fair to eclipse all its rivals. The Smith family and the Jacobses have en- gaged rooms there for the Summer. Cornwatt boarding-house landladies now sit on the pier and pipe their syren songs to the travelers on the passing steamboats; and the heartless passengers don't seem to care a cent. ona Istanp, on the Hudson, has been leased for the season by the Bloomingdale authorities. It wifl be used as a Summer retreat for lunatics. The first shipment of American dramatists ar- rived yesterday. the side. Sr. Aucusting, Florida, has laid in all the latest styles in malarial fevers, and will provide the tourist with that rest and peace for which he longs, at very short notice. NARRAGANSETT Pier affords many attractions to the Summer tourist, who can sit, with his legs hanging over the edge, and catch just as many fish as off any other pier in the country. Tue luxurious hotels, the magnificent boule- vards and the extensive polo-grounds of Skow- HEGAN are attracting the usual crowds of fashionable pleasure-seekers to this favorite Summer resort. A CLAM-SPRING has been discovered at Quocue, L.I., which has been analyzed by the eminent chemist Dr. Schwaffelbach, who recom- mends its use to those suffering from liver- complaint or bunions. PassaMaguoppy Bay is a first-rate place for all who wish to catch passamaquoddy. [We cannot give any authorities for this statement; but if there is no such fish as passamaquoddy, we don't know why the Bay has got a name like that.] MACKERELVILLE is by’ all odds the most brilliant of all our watering-places. With its famous Croton-water springs, its graded and gas-lit streets, its efficient police force, it is not to be wondered at that MACKERELVILLE has a larger summer population than even Saratoga or Newport. For a charming retreat during the heated term, we recommend Upernavik. It is, per- haps, a little difficult of access; and it is not very easy for business men to go to and from town every day, but for coolness it is a long way ahead of an extra reflex-action refrigerator. FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE. Puck has this week to chronicle several in teresting events in the world of fashion. Among these are the following engagements: Coorer-Sara.—Mr. P. Cooper, a young man of great promise, and the inventor of the patent air-cushion, is soon to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony with Miss Sara, who is at present visiting the Soldene family. ‘The fair fiancée is reputed to be one of the most grace- ful dancers in society. Hitton-Isaacs.—We learn with pleasure that Judge Hilton, the well-known philan- thropist, has successfully made suit for the hand of Miss Rebecca Isaacs, the daughter of Mr. Solomon Isaacs, the well-known dry-goods mer- chant of .C. Street. Miss Isaacs is a cousin of Mr. Moses Aaron, a gentleman whose bric-a- brac collection is second only to that of the famous Mr. Simpson. OLepiLtaLLEN-SoLpene.—Mr. W. Olebillal- len, the promising jeune premier, will next fall enter into the bonds of matrimony with Miss Emily-Soldene, the eloquent female apostle of temperance. But we must not omit to correct an inad- vertent misstatement in our last. Dr. M. Walker will not, at least at present, seek the altar of Hymen. The cause of the trouble is the non- arrival of the ¢rousseaux. They were ordered from Paris, and were to have been very expen- sive, with two pistol-pockets, and a stripe down Tere are but few things in life that are totally devoid of use. Even the potato-bug, the most apparently purposeless member of society ever born, is an ingredient of American humor, and furnishes brain-food for paragraph- ers with wonderful fecundity. comicbooks.com