Puck — February 13, 1878 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

No. 13 North Willagf Street, New York. FOR SALE BY ALU NEWS DEALERS. TJenus Jo Susscripen: PUCK’S ALMANAC. PRICE 15: CENTS. Those, who have not died happy have never read : Puck's ALManac. Those wishing to die happy will please take .notice- Over 10,000 copies gone already! WHERE IS THE POPE? ‘Tue death of Pius IX. was so long expected that its arrival was forestalled in a previous cartoon by our artist; so that, coming as it- does + now, it comes. curiously unexpected. Our artist ‘has treated this subject in a peculiar and un- conventional form. You are requested to look at the picture on our front, page and say where ithe Pope is? We-leave his merits to his friends and his faitings to his foes—all that we leave to our readers is the solution of our problem; we ask them to look at the picture impartially and with no sectarian prejudices, and answer the question that is asked in the line accompanying ithe drawing. { PUCK’S VALENTINES (ON:SKATES). “Carl Schurz on Skates” is not exactly from a sketch made on the spot, but the imagination ,of our artist can make stranger combinations ithan that, This mitch we'gan safely say: Given Carl Schurz, Bayard! and Blaine on skates, wouldn’t their relative ;positions (figuratively) ‘cortespond with the draughtsman’s ideas ? “We are living in’slippery times, and the ‘Bland gentleman who has come to grief on the silver dollar, is only’ one of the:men whose foi- ‘les are apt to trip them up. ; There isa geferal stip all around, and as Turkey falls while.the Czar dashes jauntingly along, the question intrudes itself: ‘‘ How does John Bull like, it as far as he has got ?” The whole picture is intended to be a pleas- ‘ant reminder of the season, but the sportive fancy of the artist has studded the scene with characters ahdincidents that are mure than mere figures,on ‘skates, -+ How deliciously frank is Russia in the present aspect of affairs. She, like George Washington, cannot tell a lie. She went to war to protect those poor persecuted Christians in Bulgaria. Only this and nothing more. Constantinople did you say? Oh, quite a mis- apprehension, I assure you. What was that remark about the treaty of Paris? Ah! indeed, did J break it? How very odd, to be sure. Yes, we are absent-minded sometimes. The . presence of the British fleet at Constantinople may possibly have the effect of regulating in some degree this awkward tendency in the Bear’s organization. — Anperson & WELLS now think that suit against Uncle Sammy Tilden for unpaid in- come tax ought to be dropped, and an inquiry as to the right of Hayes to his present income De set on foot. ’ MRS.SHERMAN. "That excellent, ‘hut : very ‘machi ¢mlsguided woman, Mrs. Sherman,.wife of-the-General and known to the; reckless) “ungrammatical’ popalact of -Ametica as Mrs. General Sherman, come to the'front ‘again. Some time ago she injudiciously gave her-inddrsement to a book called ‘‘ The Dance of Death,” a choice production emanating from a dirty-minded in- dividual whose name we have forgotten.;;It makes no matter: if we did remember it, -we shouldn't give him the advertisement of men- tioning it, Mrs. Sherman's difficulty with our social system is on the question of: round dances.” She finds them immoral —the waltz, the deux-temps, the antiquated polka—and she has several tinies expressed herself with vele- mence and volubility.’ Of course, it is our wish to treat with respect all'sincere and honest convictions; and if Mrs, Sherman chooses to forbid. the- General's dancing, it is eminently her own affair, and the General's. But we may’ suggest, without impropriety, that we fear Mrs. Sherman has not looked at this matter with that catholic impartiality which it demands. Round dancing is not an artificial growth of modern ‘society. “It has its place in the vast scheme of creation; it is provided for in the cosmic symmetry of the universe. We ask.Mrs, Sherman ‘simply to examine, with an unprejudiced eye, the arm—the pre- hensile right. arm—of Man. She will observe in that limb, even when in repose, a well-de- fined curve, a. graceful, easy crook. She will see that it adapts itself readily to a cylindrical surface; that it abhors a right line; that it is essentially sinuous. Why does that curve exist? . The mere question is a paradox which ought to puzzle Mrs. Sherman. Will she acknowledge that in the economy of nature that curve should be waisted? And for what other purpose is it there? Is that manly crook to be wasted on the slippery bar-counter of the diabolical beer-saloon? No! a thousand times no! ‘Let Mrs. Sherman look at the daguerreo- type which the General, we hope, still keeps locked in his desk, and looks at from time to time with something of the ardor of bygone days. She will there find evidence that kindly nature provides a responsive. and harmonious filling for that empty and yearning arc. And let her not thereafter, raise her voice against the round-dance, the harmless friend of the perfect natural union of bodies and coat-sleeves. —The desire which burns in the breast of | every young and promising actress—the pas- sionate desire to play Camille has been com- mented on before, several times, at least. But the peculiar phase which this tendency has as- sumed of late certainly deserves a word of notice. Every bright particular star—too par- ticular, perhaps—who has within the past few years, presented her conception of Camii/e toan expectant public, has, apparently, gone to work with the sole intention of whitewashing the hec- tic martyr of the rue Notre Dame de Lorette. From Clara Morris to Modjeska, we have had a succession of Camilles who vied with each other in spotless purity and unimpeachable cor- rectness of deportment; until as at last Mlle. Alphonsine Plessis rejoices in an apotheosis such as no lady of her profession ever got be- fore her, to say, the least of it. We do not wish to offer any objections to this. It is probably very nice.and pretty. It has made the play a charming “little: Sunday-school “drama, though where the Caml comes in is not so clear.” By all mean# let our stellar attractions go on afd devote’ their genius, beauty and accomplish- ments to making the heroine of their favorite play a moral and a model of respectability. Only we wish to draw their attention to the fact that the distinguished original had no as- pirations of the kind. _ Puckerings. > A sunvex dollar is 2 white'li Zi be. Branp is a smart talker, but he can’t talk fezo per cent. on to ailver dollar. { Tue stamp of Fyaud—the dollar-mark on the face of a silver 9o-cent piece. Ir seems a little ‘Curious at first glance that the growth of the Murphy movement should decrease the number of potaters, Tuere is one thing in which the ancients the bulge ‘onus: Nobody ‘ever ‘saw,Socrates going around in a pair of trousers that ‘bagged at the knees, SEES ri ‘A sitveR dollar is worth 90 per cent..of a gold one; and the Silver party can’ no more turn it yellow than they can turn themselves into a regiment of white-robed angels. WE are not in love with Bob Ingersoll. He is coarse and flippant. He'd prove more if he stuck to pure science. But still no one‘is in a position to disprove his assertions, loose as they are. gs? Ar the Weedsport,’N. Y., church fairs they ~ have “kissing bees." We are not acquainted with the Weedsport “bees, but if they know their business as kissers, they probably make the young men come to the front. Americans “ho wish to get a correct idea of the dignified courtesy of the patrician Eng- lish Parliament, when that noble body gets in- terested in the Turkish question, will do well to attend the performances of George, the Count Joannes. : Tey have had a cyclone in Georgia;.and when it struck the city of-Augusta, it is said that the mayor telegraphed to J. Blaine, Wash- ington: ‘Call your Gailamilton off.” Blaine’s reply was: “She is off now; and-nobody can make her any offer.” The truth of: the state- ment was recognized. Tue latest fashionable form of D..T. is a wide variation on the old snake.style. The aristocratic victim now sees a red clay urn, with a monogram on the neck, over a picture of Menelaus, in full armor, trying to get around the bulge at the bottom and pull a pink Cupid out of a mistletoe plantation struck by lightning. It is generally fatal. , AN exchange tells us that the feminine mind resents a joke. We call attention to the truth of this statement. Never joke with. a woman. Belt her over the head with a coal-scuttle, chuck blacking-brushes at her, throw her out of the window; but don’t wound the sensitive fibres of her soul by any humorous remarks. Woman is not paragraphic by nature. A CLERGYMAN ‘by the name of Armitage has been calling Colonel‘ Ingersoll {the new Go- : liath of Gath;”’ and our erudite contemporary, the Sun, wants.to know ‘ Where is the new Daniel, with his pebbles and sling?” We. are happy to inform the Sun that Daniel is coming right along “‘ with his pebbles and sling.” -He will probably arrive about the same time as Moses with his jaw-bone of an ass and Samuel with his little hatchet. - ¢ Sisene