Puck — October 17, 1877 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK. 5 “PUCK”, No. 13 North William Stréet, New York FOR SALE BY ALL NEWS DEALERS. Terms Jo Sunscriners. One Copy one year, or s2 numbers... One Copy, six months, or 26 numbers. Postace Fra. THE FUNERAL OF CITY REFORM. We are sorry for New York’s misfortunes, and if it were in our power to kick Boss Kelly from the pedestal he so unworthily occupies in its politics we should not hesitate for a single instant. But John Kelly’s star is in the ascen- dant—for the time his victory at the Albany Convention was a signal one, and he is not the man we take him for unless he makes the most of it. We fear that the opposition of honest men to him and his creatures is almost hopeless, as, flushed with success, and with a party well organized, he can sweep all obstacles from his path. But let not the formidable array of flourishing villainy deter lovers of respectable city govern: ment from opposing, tooth and nail, John Kelly and that foul blot on our civilization —Tamman; Hall. There is at least a satisfaction in record- ing one’s protest and fighting against a vice— even if one is worsted in the attempt. To suppose that any manner of benefit can accrue to the city from the rule of John Kelly is simply absurd. Reform, or anything in the shape of reform, with such a man, is entirely out of the question. There will be the same rings, the same jobs, the same if not a greater number of useless officers and employés fatten- ing on the salaries paid out of outrageous taxes wrung from half-ruined property-holders. The debt of the city will be increased, and the good old times of the ‘I'weed régime will bloom again in all their reckless grandeur. ‘‘ There is but one Tammany, and Kelly is its prophet,” is the political creed of his disreputable but powerful followers. We only wish that our good citizens would be as alive to the danger as we are. We give them fair warning once more. Defeat, trample on, and kill John Kelly politically—if you can; and if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. The National Democratic party differs as widely from Kelly’s gang as chalk does from cheese, and it is unfortunate that its shining lights should in some measure have to be iden- tified with Tammany democrats as democrats. The sooner the great Democratic party repu- diates these knavish Tammany politicians, the better for its self-respect and position in the eyes of the country. AUTUMN. In position in the calender, Autumn corres- ponds to Spring, being a kind of half-way pe- riod between the hot and the cold weather; but it has a certain superiority over Spring in the vigor and persistence of the catarrhal ailments it brings with it. All well-regulated little Sunday-school boys who have to die, in order to be put in good books, get their colds in Autumn. They get cold going out on stormy days to warn bad lit- tle boys of the error of their ways. This en- ables them to linger through the winter, to set an example of patient suffering and pious re- signation. Then they die, just as the first vio- lets bloom forth in the Spring. This, however, brings us to the subject of Spring, which is too comprehensive to be treat- ed hastily. Autumn is the period when the bad little boys, who have no intention of dying, get into disagreement with their school-teachers, pecans they prefer to take their education out in play- ing circus on the fences. They feel the need of exercise at this season of the yew. The teacher feels the need of exercise, too, and he takes it out with a shingle on the softest part of the boys. This enables him to reach their finer sensibilities. But we again digress. At this time, too, the great national sport of Fox Hunting comes waltzing to the front. The fox, however, does not do any of the waltzing. In fact, there is not much fox about the Ame- rican Fox Hunt. There is more anise-seed bag. Most of the people who hunt in this country are not well acquainted with the appearance and manners of the fox, and when, at the last hunt in New Jersey, it was discovered that there was a general impression among the hunters that the fox was something between a wood-chuck and a cow-bunting, it was thought advisable to substitute an anise. We suggest, in our double-page cartoon, a way of overcoming the objections to the use of the real fox. No- body could mistake the fox, the way we would have him hunted. In autumn, also, the theatre manager looms up in his magnificence, and offers us five-act farces, and calls them legititnate comedies. And the festive Augustus takes his festive Angelina to the ballet, and Angelina wonders what Augus- tus can find in that very undressed woman to admire. In autumn the shrewd redskin wearies of the monotonous amusement of scalping white men, forswears his playfulness, and offers peace for blankets, For the nipping breezes of frosty winter remind him that skins even when they are red need the comfort of warmth. Our artist has made a very pretty picture in one corner of the cartoon, showing how people kiss in autumn. This picture must not be taken too literally, however. There is no limitation on the style of kissing. It is not absolutely necessary to kiss through a chair-back. If your osculatory predilections are for any other style of kiss, you can kiss that way—if she will let you. But perhaps it is no use trying to tell the youthful American public anything about kiss- ing. Se may be well, perhaps, to close these ran- dom reflections with a few Autumn THoucHTs. Autumn man get drunk? Autumn mule kick? Autumn monkey marry? Autumn maiden kiss ? Autumn musician muzish? Ought ‘em? HAYES WEATHERS THE STORM. Tue President has now obtained a good offing and steers the steam launch of state o’er the once troubled waters of the sea of politics. ‘Two clouds, each no bigger than a man’s face, are endeavouring by fierce blasts of indignation to throw the little craft on its beam ends and bring it to grief. They will not succeed so long as Hayes pursues an honest course, and keeps his mainsail full, and the engines in good working order. Hayes if he be neither a great statesman nor a great orator, at any rat> means well, and we believe is conscientious and honest. Other qualities, it is true, may be necessary to make a ruler whose name will go down to posterity as one of the world’s heroes. He has done some unwise things for which Puck has taken him to task, as have apparently his constituents in Ohio, by going democratic by a large ma- jority. Disappointed Conkling may blow until all’s blue, and Allen may ventilate his inflation theo- ries, and then distend himself until’ he bursts; but Hayes stands by his tiller and keeps on his course of honesty and rectitude. Purkerings. INFLUENZA announces its fall opening about this time. He never had put on thicker flannels at this season, he said. He never will again. SECRETARY SHERMAN refers the question of. Canadian reciprocity tariff to the State Depart- ment.—£x. Quite right; a thing of duty is a jaw for Evar-ts. : AppPLes are rotting in Denmark, N. ¥Y. So says an item. Shakspeare must have had this in mind when he wrote there was something rotten in Denmark. Sr. Gitaan has owned up he was a mart: to not having as many greenbacks as he thou; ht himself entitled to. “So there is no doubt that his canonization will be confirmed. A Harvarp student pays his expenses through college by selling stationery, another by work- in a barber's shop. A base-ball store, we think, would pay better than either occupation. AT a musical party the other evening a gen- tleman arose to play a solo on the flageolet; but before he began he mildly remarked to the audience: ‘See that my grave's kept green.” RELIGION has its consolations, and it is doubtless a part of the divine scheme that the Evangelical Knowledge Convention and the Lydia Thompson troupe coincide in Boston this week. Ir will happen, sometimes, that the ambi- tious young man seats himself in the barber's chair and says loftily: “Shave my moustache;”” and the barber is obliged to tell him that he is not in the excavating line, just at present. ‘Tue Sun in an article on the College of Phy- sicians an Surgeons, alluding to the non-admis- sion of a negro student, asks: ‘‘ Shall a colored skin be excluded ?”—Yes, Mr. Dana, any kind of a skin, colored or otherwise, should be ex- cluded. Tuts is the time when after a young man has waited through a protracted meeting to see a girl home over two miles and a half of turn- pike, influenzial considerations, and a desire to retain his reputation for elegance, sause him to refrain from snatching a parting kiss. Time works wonders. It is strange to think, as we press the dainty hand that flutters like an imprisoned bird between our own, these moon- light nights, that it will take only a dozen years or so to teach that tender palm to adapt itself to the rotundity of our eldest boy's sensitive end with vigor and precision. Miss Minnie E. Hopces, of the money or- der office of Des Moines, Iowa, has handled during six years $4,000,000, and has never made a mistake of a cent. A man, in the same time, would have made several mistakes of con- siderable cents, and would be now studying in Europe proposed amendments to the existing extradition treaties.