Puck — August 8, 1877 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK. 7 | THE CARDINAL'S DAUGHTER. Airs “* Rateatcher's Daughter.” She says she’s a Cardinal's daughter, And swears that her father’s fortune, by rights, Helong to her had oughter. Chorus—Doodle-di-doodle-di, Da-dum doodle-dum. ae ir Rome, you've heard, a Countess lives— CA “« By my dead dad’s hat I'm not quite a flat,” Says she to the College, that fought her; «When in the court I hope to sit upon the Pope — For I’m Cardinal Antonelli’s daughter.” Chorus—Doodle-di, &e. But the church was amazed, and almost crazed, And thinks in its net has caught her ‘Though it’s not polite—indeed, it’s scarcely right For a Cardinal to have a daughter. Chorus—Doodle-di, Se. HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, (Continued.) CHAPTER II. F imitation is the sincerest flattery, Colum- bus soon found himself flattered into a back seat. | ‘The original discoverer having neglected to | take out a patent on his find, very nearly all the unoccupied portion of the European population went into the discovery business, and wandered multitudinously to the western wilds. Thus the Tramp became an institution in America, This institution is still extant. Among the gentlemen of leisure who started for the new world, immediately after Columbus, were Amerigo Vespucci, Ponce de Leon, G. W. de Soto, William Boa, better known as Bill, the | Cabot Family (who were in the circus busi- ness), Cortez, Pizarro, and a member of the | Smith family. This chapter of our history will deal with the | feats and fortunes of these discoverers. | It is scarcely necessary to say, after men- tioning this crowd, that the original Columbus got badly left. He made a few more voyages to America, got as far south as Brazil, and lost all his money at faro. In his old age he went back to Spain, clean bust. When the bent and wasted figure of Colum- bus appeared at the Court of Madrid, the King, who had a good memory, smiled a sardonic smile and remarked that the whirligig of time was immense on bringing in revenges, as Shak- speare was about to say, a hundred years later. And His Majesty ordered Columbus to be cast into prison. 5 Afterwards he used to go and sit outside the gratings and taunt the venerable navigator. “You're the man who said ‘them ships,’ are you ?” he would ask, mockingly. ‘ You're the man with the egg, eh? You're the fellow my wife thought was good-looking? Oh, how are you now?” Ultimately both the King and Columbus died, | which is a way historical characters have. Among discoverers the boss fraud was Am- erigo Vespucci, or, as the pedantic schoolbooks will spell his name, A-mer’-ce-go Ves-pootch-ee. He followed Columbus, jumped his claim, staked it out in his own name, and snatched all the glory baldheaded. Ponce de Leon was another man of a very different kind. He sailed down along the Atlantic coast and discovered Florida, which was about as useless a place to discover as any man could pick out. Florida has never been put to any practical use since its discovery, except by a Sun reporter, who uses it to date his column-and-a-half alli- gator letters from. Ponce de Leon’s specialty was the finding of the Fountain of Eternal Youth. He hunted all around for it, and it is a keen and heartfelt de- light to the historian to be able to state that he finally struck it in Bourbon county, Kentucky. ‘The spring is still in operation. De Soto was the man who discovered the Mississippi. He also discovered Mark Twain, who was at that time a pilot ona river steamer. ‘Those were the days of Mark’s youth and comparative innocence. He had never published a book, and hadn’t dreamed of writing a play. All his subsequent degradation de Soto is responsible for. The world might have been happier and better if de Soto had left the young man in his primeval simplicity. Minnesota is named after de Soto's daughter Minnie. Pizarro is the man who struck Peru, He brought priests down to Peru, who were greatly shocked at the irreligious condition of the in- habitants, who referred to the reverend gentle- | men as “ gospel-slinge This is a picture of a priest expressing horror and astonishment at the sight of an ungodly Peruvian. But Pizarro knocked a good deal out of the ungodliness ofthe Peruvian people. He prob- ably knocked out the next thing to it, too, for the Peruvians have never been famous for an exaggerated estimate of the beauties of clean- liness. Bill Boa, the individual before referred to, | was a man who habitually traveled on Bill Board tickets. He discovered the Pacific ocean, He felt one morning like taking a swim. He had | been swimming in whiskey all the week, and he | thought he would try water for a change. So he went to the top of a mountain and discovered | the Pacific ocean. He didn’t know its name at | that time, though, and he called it the South | Sea, which shows how horribly his geography was mixed up. As soon as Bill Boa—whom, by the way, later | commentators have erroneously spelled Balboa —saw-the Pacific, he sloped for -it, which accounts for the Pacific slope. The Cabots discovered Newfoundland and created a breed of dogs, who are not much good for fighting purposes, however. ‘The other minor discoverers discovered what- ever there was left to discover. (To be continued.) FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE. Bishop Coxe is taking his vacation in Nic- sics, Mr. Moses Aaron is not at the Kraendt Choonion. Muss Emity Sovpene will pass the rest of the summer in Australia, Count Joannes is flooding Saratoga with the light of his legal acumen, Mrs. Dr. Mary Watxer is acting as fidle du regiment to the West Point Cadets. Cuas. Francis Apams will go for a week or two up either the North or the Boston-bean pole. * SiGNor OLesILLALLeNt the celebrated tenor, is giving his phenomenal but much-abused -organ a rest during the summer months, Mr. Apranas O. Hatt, a gentleman once well known in legal and artistic circles of this city, is passing the summer in Europe. Wuen a Nicaraguan mother-in-law lights out for her victim with a poker, and accidentally catches her own Teutonic spouse over the head, it is at once made an international matter, and it takes Bismarck, tio Alcaddes, a Dutch Am- bassador, a U. S. Minister Resident, four reams of official correspondence, a British iron-clad and one piece of arnica court-plaster to restore affairs to their normal condition. comicbooks.com