Puck — April 24, 1878 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK. “PUCK”, No. 13 North William Street, New York. FOR SALE BY ALL NEWS DEALERS. Terms To SuBscripers. One Copy one year, or $2 numbers... ‘One Copy, six months, o 26 numbers ‘One Copy for thirteen weeks..... Postrace Frax. <9@- Remittances by Money Order etc. are to be addressed to Kerrier THE ERA OF CLAIMS. HIS is verily a season of claims. The rich placer of the natignal treasury is being assiduously worked in the interest of a number of claimants. The trouble is not so much with those who really have claims, as with those who fancy they possess them. The number of these is well nigh innumerable. Most of them, strange to say, come from the South. As the Congressional session is about drawing to its close, they are moving on Wash- ington heavily laden. ‘They present a peculiar appearance. ‘There is the sable claimant, fresh from the cotton-field, who wishes the govern- ment to reimburse him for the injury he has endured from a kick from his favorite mule. ‘There is the burly planter who wishes the gov- ernment to compensate him for his losses re- sulting from the rainy season. ‘Ihe wily lawyer has Ais “little claim,” and the former field-hand now pauses on his tramps to. recall how seven- teen years ago he gave a federal soldier a cup of well-water, for which he now expects the government to pay. A tree has blown dowm, and the treasury is to pay the loss. A peculiarity of these retrospective claims is that they increase with time. Each year they become targer. The claimants seem never to die, nor do their demands abate. ‘The story is known of the naticnal claimant, who ap- proached President Jackson seeking a diploma- tic embassy, and who concluded by receiving from him a pair of old boots. This experience is, just at present, being altogether reversed. Claims against the government for boots grow in the process of adjudication, and during the delay of years into cash demands on the trea- sury for exorbitant sums. The humorous phase of the question is really the subordinate one. But it obtrudes itself continually; and while we reprobate the eagerness with which the claimants move against the treasury, we cannot but be amused by the expedients they adopt. WHAT GOETH ON AT PRESENT. ~ WN ND in these days cometh into the world BX the Easter Hat. And thesame is of two “© kinds: the Male and the Female Hat. And the Male costeth nine dollars; but to the Female are there no bounds, neitzer any limits. And thence is there much trouble and dissen- sion in every household. But the man-milliner waxeth rich on the profits thereof, and he sitteth in the room of the woman-milliner who is not his legal spouse, and he playeth poker with her. And by-and-by will he indulge in the luxury of a divorce-case, and give away his wife; and hitch up a peg the social status of the millinery business. Selah. * Yea, now, what is there for cussedness like unto a monkey? For he ravisheth the hunk of molasses candy from the sucking infant, and he getteth his paws sticky therewith, and he reacheth out for the head of the family. But the same being bald affordeth him no grip, and he transferreth his attentions to the eldest daughter of the house; he claweth her coiffure; he snatcheth her depillated. And being pur- sued he escapeth to the ceiling, and hangeth on by the cornice, and he excavateth the plastering, and he chucketh fragments thereof at them that follow him to do him harm, For the agility of him is as the agility of greased lightning, and his sense of moral obligation is like to the sense of moral obligation that weigheth down the conscience of the New Jer- sey mosquito. ‘And about this season the shaggy cocoanut basketh in the sun upon the fruit-stand of the Italian vender. And the small-boy purchaseth a section of the interior of the cocoanut, and eateth thereof. And shortly after, the enter- prising show-man purchaseth a section of the interior of the small-boy; and he advertiseth the Finest Specimen of Octopus Ever Seen in America. But lo! the time of the green peach cometh, And now becometh the Spring Suit a terror and a bane to the average young man, and the thought thereof leaveth him not by night nor by day. And he waxeth desperate and poetical, and he sayeth to himself: “ Behold now, I will shake the dust of this city from off my feet, and I will fly to a desert island in the Western Sea, where he who weareth a shoe-string about his waist is considered a dandy, and he who hath a chest-protector is held as a man who sporteth an ulster. Yea, I will be as a leader of the fashions in Owhyhee.” And then he girdeth up his loins, and he goeth out, and intervieweth his tailor, and ropeth him in for a check suit. And now is the time arrived when the master of the house cometh home at even, and findeth all things in disorder, and likewise in soap- suds; and the wife of his bosom on the stairs, disagreeing with the handmaiden; and the parlor carpet in the back-yard, where it enjoy- eth the gentle titillation of a man who receiveth pay by the hour. And he remarketh casually that he will dine at the club, and he turneth to go out, and ke walketh into a pail of hot water that standeth right in the middle of the hall- way: and the Recording Angel reacheth for a copper-tipped pen, and taketh down his phono- graphic memoranda on sheet-iron; and it is moreover incumbent upon that angel to be especially smart about it. MAD DOG! = — \[GHE time is approaching when it is just rea as well to begin being frightened about Hydrophobia. We wish to impress upon our readers the necessity of clinging to the good old conser- vative notions on this subject. Don't be led astray by any rationalistic opposition to estab- lished theories. It is true that deaths from Hydrophobia are about as rare as deaths from falling out of balloons; but what difference docs that make? Since time immemorial has is not been the divine privilege of humanity to go tearing about, through all the season of warm weather, persecuting stray dogs and writ- ing alarmist letters to the news-papers? Don’t stand any nonsense on this point. Hydrophobia is a good thing to get up a scene about. Is it not better that all the dogs in New York should be drowned than that little Johnny Burke of Hester St. should get bitten by a cross-eyed mule, and die six months after of indigestion ? ‘There are some men who try to argue this thing; but they are not to be trusted. If you meet such a man, denounce him at once as being asentimentalist, and “in” with the black- and-tan delegation. If he tries to tell you that dogs are more likely to take an antipathy to water in winter when they aren’t thirsty than they are in summer when they are suffering from the heat, respond to him—why, respond to him that—tell the fellow—well, yes—explain to him—oh! ask him how he'd like to get bit- ten, himself. x And if he begins quoting any of his statis- tics, as that kind of man generally will, to try te make you believe that a dog may bite a man without having Hydrophobia or communicating it; that the bite of a horse, a cat, or any other animal is just as likely to produce the rabies as is the canine article; that to fasten his nose up in a cumbrous muzzle and treat him generally or a Pariah and an outcast is the surest way to drive a dog mad, if there is any mad in him —if he comes the statistics game on you, shut him right up by informing him that you con- sider statistics a new-fangled humbug. Perhaps he will point out to you that there is more chance of your getting lockjaw from a prick of the scissors with which you trim your finger-nails, than of catching Hydrophobia from the faithful dog who would starve or fight or die for you to-morrow, If he does, you have him there. There is no analogy between a pair of scissors and a bull-pup. Stand up for the good old ideas. Don't let anyone pit iconoclastic, materialistic science against a man’s reverence for the traditions of his grandfathers. If you see an unmuzzled dog in the street, yell, run for a policeman, get a crowd, club the dog till he confesses his insanity by biting someone. Shoot him. Yes, make a howling public-spirited idiot of yourself. And then go home and breathe sewer-gas by the cubic yard; lean out your window and inhale poisonous odors from Hun- ter’s Point; sit down to table and eat new potatoes and green fruits of the earth out of their season; go to sleep and leave the insect- powder where the children can get at it and eat it, to see what it tastes like. Life is too serious a thing to be trifled with, THE CHICAGO PRECEDENT. NY CHICAGO man died leaving property valued a few years since at $1,225,000. s Some trouble ensued between the law- yers and guardians, as to whom the property really belonged to, So intricate was the question found to be, that twelve lawyers were set to work to decide it. The legal method of deciding will-cases where large sums are involved is peculiar. The testa- tor’s only heir has recently made application to a Chicago court for $50 to pay his school-bill, and the request was resisted by his attorneys, on the ground that the entire estate had been exhausted in legal expenses, and that of the $1,225,000 not even $50 was left. This is quite an innovation. In New York the lawyers would have followed the Chicago rule as to using up the estate, but they would at this stage be putting in a claim for legal services, and pray the court to give them precedence over the school-bill, since they had worked disinterestedly for nothing, and had advanced money to the estate. Ir is better to be right than President of a south American republic. Tue cheapest thing about a $300 piano which is sold for $55 is the man who buys it. Tue quasi-earthquake at Constantinople, on | Sunday, is a violation of the treaty of San Stefano. TearFuL Tommy SHEARMAN, of Brooklyn, has made his little statement, and it remains now only for Mrs. Morse to be heard from. A confession of true inwardness from the lady would help the case amazingly. ‘comicbooks.com