Puck — June 19, 1878 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK. TO AN ORGAN-GRINDER. Witt upturned, saint-hke countenance you grind Some notes that on my senses sweetly fall; Then suddenly you turn to “ Lanigan’s Ball,” And make me feel to any fate resigned. Only your red-capped monkey seems to find Communion with you joyous as you drawl Your uncouth lingo, and serenely haul Him out of harm by the rope about him twined. Although at times entrancingly you play, T'd like to see pale roses bloom above Your nameless grave, Sometimes your music's spell Doth waft me on ineffable wings away— One moment I taste the honeyed lips of love, And then I breast the seething billows of hell. R. K. Munkittrick. APPROPRIATE TO THE SEAS-ON. > UCK desires it to be distinctly understood that he does not own a yacht; he owns it honorably—and he wishes to be none the less distinctly understood when he says that often, when flying ‘“ 'twixt heaven and earth,” he has envied the happy yacht-owners and felt (to coin a word) a regretta that he was not in the way of being invited—the companion-way. There is no rapture in the lonely shore for him; the rapture is in being aboard and lodging at another’s expense, watching the merry waves breaking into riplets of gold under the summer sun, or dimpling into silver smiles while coquet- ting with the moon; and anon to lean over the side, speculating whether the quarantine ships are horse-pitals for those troubled with ma/ de mare. Puck thinks, therefore, that some of the wealthy yacht owners ought to invite him on a cruise, and the following are some of the rea- sons why they yacht to: He is acquainted with the habits of the monsters of the deep, and can expatiate on the reasons and porpoises of their formation. He can sing superbly the well known bass song, calculated to please navigators, “ The Old Sextant.”” He has a fund of jokes, appropriate to the sea, for the amusement of the maritime party; such as: A certain spot being a sharking bad one for fishing; That the sea should be called Finland; Hits on the Irish stew-ard, ef cetera. Puck naturally objects to retailing his entire collection, for reasons that will be appreciated. He is fond, in the morning, of taking a “header” into the deeply darkly, dive-in-ly blue. He knows everything about everything ‘board ships—as, for instance, that the colored cook's sleeping-apartment is Uncle Tom's Cabin; that a main sail could not be made in Massachusetts; that “aye, aye, sir,” is not the first person, singular, and that neither of them is the sailors weather-eye; that to speak of the captain as the skipper is quite the cheese; that the capstan is not a hat-stand; that the jolly tar and the pitch of the vessel are-in no way related; that an old salt is of no use to the cook, that a man may be a pleasant gentleman, yet be astern; that the man at the wheel should pay no attention if you spoke to him—the spokes of the wheel, though, should command the felloe’s ear; that ‘a wet sheet and a flowing sail” has no refe- rence to your bed; that the log is not a billet, and that it is more like a diet doux, and that there are not eight bells aboard. He, being a sort of sporting character, could, for the amusement of the passengers, during a calm, box the compass, and, in a friendly spar, he would always be foremast. And Puck begs that the invitations may not flow in so rapidly that, for fear of offending a number, he will be forced to decline all, and thus be compelled to forego—his anticipated pleasure and “a life on the ocean waive.” A PLEA FOR DECENCY IN ART, I Mr. Anthony Comstock, as the conserva- tor of American novels, won’t come to the rescue, Puck must. We are referring to that school of art, which gives us, in very weakly papers, the bare facts of the chronique scanda- deuse of our day’s doings, and dishes up, in all their nakedness, the scenes which the daily papers consider too gross even to describe in type. *Erhese artists of—shall we say, the Boston school ?—might, perhaps, be induced to draw these scenes sv as not to offend Anthony Com- stock, or Puck, or decency. We suggest that they should draw from the model. Somewhere about Tremont street, or Bromfield street, or in the Studio Building, in Boston, there was once upon a time a gang who mysteriously met, upon certain evenings, and drew figures in a “ Life School.” But they never got any life into their pictures. Clearly, then, they should, for Art’s sake and for Comstock’s sake, draw from the model. And we suggest a few cartoons which might come in handy, and—as first pages—would be very showy on the news-stands. At ) ell oy 6 ; emir Fearful Fate of a Fickle and Faithless Female Wife in Kalamazoo! She takes charcoal with her lover! Her husband is in the background, looking at the horrid deed! Or again, a mild way of working up an item, might be as follows: A Beautiful Girl of Oshkosh insists upon going toa Balt, with her Fiancé, clad only in her robe de nuit. Of course we can’t be expected to furnish a// the cartoons for these papers, but we will add one more. A Peep behind the Scenes in High Life. A Deserted Fair One in Fifth Avenue consoles herself with a Poodle. And the sooner these gentle hints are adopted, the more decent will the Boston papers become. we A CURE FOR TOOTHACHE. q VERYONE has been troubled, more or less—generally more—with toothache. From time to time benefactors have arisen and made prescriptions calculated to free humanity from this ache and pain, The benefactors have, for the most part, failed miserably. A little transitory ascendantcy has been in most cases their sole reward, and then they have subsided into oblivion. ‘There has arisen, however, recently, a man whose goal is not Oblivion. It is Fame. This man has scat- tered to the winds the traditions of prior bene- factors, and come forth aglow with promise. He bears with him a harbinger of success—a recipe. From the way he presents it we incline to think that his advent is not spontaneous. “« He was not always thus.” He seems rather to have become so by art and training. He has developed into what he is. He has grown more so. He has mellowed. He has surmounted obstacles. He has brushed aside dangers. Perfect and complete, he now stands with the following extraordinary recipe: CURE FOR TOOTHACHE, ONE OUNCE OF ALCOHOL. TWO DRACHMS OF CAYENNE PEPPER. ONE OUNCE OF KEROSENE OIL. LET IT STAND 24 HOURS BEFORE USING. IT CURES THE WORST TOOTHACHE KNOWN. There is, to say the least, a certain sort of novelty about this. There has always been great consumption of alcohol, though not for this specific purpose. Cayenne pepper is a condiment not usually given for assuaging pain or allaying bodily ills. It exercises a rather contrary effect in most cases. As to the kero- sene oil, we cannot imagine what its healing properties can be. This kerosene, when added to Cayenne pepper and alcohol, cannot exer- cise a very soothing effect on the sufferer. The materials seem to be—we say it with due dif- fidence—badly chosen. The crowning absurdity is found in the last designation: Let it stand 24 hours before using. This brings neither balm or comfort to the disconsolate sufferer, The kind of relief he seeks must be obtainable instanter, and not after a delay of a day or so- It may be said perhaps—and certainly with some semblance of truth—that the author of the recipe may be a humorist in disguise. Several of his strokes are exceedingly clever, and show great skill, If he is an old man, he should be shown the error of his ways; if he is young, he should be made to desist, and shown that he is joking on a too delicate theme. If he is a woman, the case is hopeless, and the lurid recipe must stand forever. comicbooks.com