Puck — May 29, 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 SUBSCRIBERS. One Copy one year, or $2 numbers. . One Copy, six months, or 26 numbers. Ove Copy for thirteen weeks... Postace Fees. H.C. BUNNE! Mawacixa Eprror. Remittances by Money Order, etc., are to be addressed to Kerrier & SCHWARZMANN. DECORATION DAY. HE annual Decoration Day farce will soon be in progress. It is the custom on this day for the friends and admirers of the departed veterans to assemble, and, after divers expensive preliminaries, to deck their graves with wreaths and garlands. They are abetted by the usual horde of advertisers who disport them- selves on the graves of the veterans with an- nouncements of “Prize Soap,” “Stove Polish,” and “Moth Exterminator.” This may be ad- mirable business, but as patriotism it is open to several trifling objections. In the first place this annual farce is more expensive to the advertisers than the ordinary method of secur- ing publicity; it yields a scantier return. In the second place, the proceeding is of no benefit whatever to the soldiers for whom presumably the solemnity (or festivity) is designed. It will probably be as well for all parties when the true nature of the business comes to be understood; and Puck cannot help suggesting in this con- nection that if one-half of the money which is spent on flowers (which are ofttimes stolen from the graves,) was devoted to the widows and or- phans of the deceased veterans, a benefit would be accomplished which would renderDecoration Day an anniversary worthy of remembrance. SHADOWS. = — L>HE United States Senate, bya strict party Sf) vote, last week placed ex-President Grant 7" on the retired army list, with rank and pay of commander. ‘The action itself is not important. General Grant was a brave and suc- cessful soldier, and a movement tending to per- petuate the bright memory of that phase of his career cannot but be grateful to Americans, since it is an association which they have reason to cherish. The act in however, in its real meaning possesses other significance, to wit—a virtual entering of the General in the Presiden- tial race of 1880. The occasion was graced by numerous speeches of Republican Senators, who stated substantially their belief that Grant was the “coming” candidate. It does not need a very prophetic or sagacious man to state that the next Presidential election will find the Republican party in very sore straits for an available candidate. Grant, who brings with him the prestige of past success—and, what is better, a complete isolation from the Electoral muddle—starts with advantages over all his rivals. His European tour has been of incal- culable political benefit to him here. A soldier’s name always inspires feelings to which the popu- lar pulse is responsive, and that transcendent political virtue, never to have been beaten, is Grant's still. Those Republicans who run, with the “machine” associate him with the brightest era of Republican ascendancy, and such enemies as he has are without the pale of the working forces of the organization. It seems highly probable, therefore, that, should the present drift continue, General Grant will be put in nomination in 1880. If the reign of peculation and prodigality, violated trusts, sec- tional animosities, and general debauchery of the public service, which marked his term, is to be revived, it is about time that it became fully known, It is a question which cannot be too widely or too soon discussed. MOSQUITOS. =) JEEROM time immemorial the mosquito, has been subjected to the severest criticism -S% on alll sides, and every conceivable oblo- quy has been heaped upon it unsparingly. We don’t consider this just. The mosquito may in some respects bea winged crocodile trimmed with unearthly music, but that is not its fault; it was born so, and it is quite as natural to it to buzz as it is to a book-agent. ‘The mosquito-bite is not such a terrible affair, after all. It is not a circumstance to the bite of a dog, yet when one makes its ap- pearance there is a general rush to bang it into eternity. ‘This is not the case when a canine appears in view. He not infrequently is the recipient of an opulent shower of missiles from peripatetic gamins, however. man who will cheerfully mind his own business on ordinary occasions will go out of his way to kill a mosquito, and, should it be a long distance from him, he will shout: “Hey, Jones, there’s a mosquito,” in a tone both musical and sincere. If a min sees another fixing a pin for some one to sit on, or, in fact, preparing to perpe- trate a joke which may result fatally to the jokee, he will never so much as saya single word by way of warning; but let a mosquito come within gunshot of a person whom he knows not, and he will go frantic in an endeavor to rescue. Experienced people are of the opinion that the sting of a hornet contains much more body and piquancy than that of a mosquito, yet the hornet is not slandered and hounded by every one in christendom. He wanders wherever his fancy dictates, and it is a pretty well established fact that he gets all the elbow- room he wants. It is true that the mosquito comes around at the dead of night in such a manner as to cause one to consider it a fying hand-organ, but then it is not so annoying as cats, dogs, horse-cars, and other nuisances which we have to contend with and listen to every blessed day of our lives. We might go on further with a defense of the mosquito, We might tell you a great deal more about him, but the time is near when everyone can write his or her private essay from expe- rience, and we want to leave some facts un- touched for their benefit. Hatep, feared, and maligned, Was Medusa, the old-time Gorgon, But it should ever be kept in mind She didn’t play a hand-organ. Wuen the sun gems the bosom of morn, And dewdrops the tulip adorn, Our dreams fly away, With the speed of a jay, At the sound of the lacteal horn. On the meads butterflies now appear, And the swallows skim over the weir, Gay laughterful June Will be with us soon, And the cockiail's supplanted by beer. *Monc the bushes the fisherman lies, To woo Sir Brook Trout with false flies; After wooing all day He meanders away, Using language which Christians despise. Packerings. Rome was not built by contract. They cry “War, War!" and there is no War, Tue legislator who eagerly seeks power makes a inistake when he pursues it by way of Albany, A penny saved is two-thirds of a cent given to savings-bank officials by the new scaling process. You can no longer flaunt your Astrakan cap in the face of an humbled and outraged consti- tuency. Its time has expired by limitation, He was a shrewd young man, and he re- marked: ‘If you knew what I know about that book, you would see that there was nothing in it.” ‘THe Reverend Frank L.. Smith is received into the full communion of the Plymouth fold, and sitteth on the right hand of Beecher. - He has qualified. A CONTEMPORARY inquires: ‘ Does the Lord require overwork?” He does not. But if the fine-featured rector can contrive to be at his post one day out of a possible seven, the sacri- fice will be recorded where it will do most good. We have no objection to economy, even when practiced by corperations. If the Ele- vated Railroad Company wishes to reduce its force of employees, it has an indisputable right todo so. But when it takes to reducing them with girders, we think that a respectful protest is in order. Wuen a shopkeeper frightens a respectable woman into hysterics by accusing her of theft, in order to calm her agitation he sends her into a back room and deputes a female as- sistant to go through her pockets, to search for parasols, umbrellas or seal-skin sacques. The operation is technically called “soothing” and “consoling” her. ‘Tue forerunners of ‘summer guests "—the newspaper correspondents—have begun to ar- tive at the watering-places, and the downcast proprietor brushes the cobwebs from his ther- mometer and exclaims: “It lies if it says summer has not begun.” But he wisely refrains from removing his great-coat. THERE appears to be a remarkable similarity between the members of the Potter family. Grace-Church Potter's little attempt to adver- tise himself as an Anglo-Saxon has fallen flat, and gone to join his brother's ‘‘Resolution.” If the Potters are fair samples of the Anglo-Saxon race, Anglo-Saxons must be quoted at about 25 cents a dozen, as they run. Wuew Spring grim Winter, its mother-in-law, buries, And Love its passionate similes words, When the garden is rife with lilacs and straw- berries, 3 And the woodland’s delicious with songful birds, When the bees are busy’ at fair Hymettus, And the hornet makes felt his fiery foil, Then bring forth the sumptuous dish of lettuce With plenty of golden olive-oil. comicbooks.com