Puck — October 30, 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 SurscRIBERS ore eres Romer dea mune : One Copy tor thirteen weeks. Post oS, KEPPLER, WAR ZMANN. C. BUNNER. ILLUSTRATED ay. Business M, SFECIAL NOVICES. Puce will hereafter be on Sale in London, at the News Agency of Messrs. HENRY F. GILLIG & CO,’ 449, Strand, Channg Cross. Amencans in Paris, hitherto reduced to Punch". “Fun"’ and judy". will now find their natural paper on file at the ‘*Herald”* Offce, 49 Avenue de I'Opéra. ‘We cannot undertake to return rejected communications, and to this rule we can make no exception: gay Remitances by Money Order, etc., are to be ad to Kerrier & SCHWARZMANN. Ba Ovr advertising friends are only required to pay bills presented on the billheads of Puck, with our stamp mtraesseD thereon. KEPPLER & SCHWARZM CONTENTS. Horrible Effect of the Exposi- tlon—illus.! The Admiral fand the Mother in-Law (poem! Some Social Ferd, pper's Parrot, zi Assia 10 we Ananees fe Temparrotive Mode (poem aW.M a Puck Makes an Excursion | A Mother's First Love | Puck's Excnances Light and Shadow. Her Majesty's Opera. North Rectitude, Last Words to Voters. Xo Unsavory Monthful. ‘The Tramp (poem). Frrzxoopte tN AMERICA. Poex’s Ticket ‘She Might—illos. LIGHT AND SHADOW. Germany now is in the throes of “suffering a recovery.” She has had a victorious cam- paign; an enormous indemnity from her wealthy and humbled neighbor, France; her Emperor has been made a target; and, al- though socialism and poverty are rampant, still she is not happy. Puck has simply to suggest to Mr. Bismarck that, under such circum- stances, it is not wise to put on the screws too tight. To unbiased outsiders like ourselves it looks very much as if hope for a season had bade Germany farewell; and Freedom is shriek- ing as the shadow of reaction hovers over her, leaving Republican France basking in the sun- shine of comparative liberty and great pros- perity. HER MAJESTY’S OPERA. MANAGER MapLeson has brought over from the beautiful Isle of Sea (we always drop into poetry when we write about music) a company strong enough to give us good opera. He has taken no half measures. I Bacio Arditi sways an excellent orchestra. The chorus is com- posed of less hideous individuals than usually seek to enter that noble army of martyrs, and better singers. The Academy is clean, and less suggestive of the star chamber in the mam- moth cave of Kentucky. The scenery, if not painted by Millais, Doré, or even Telbin, is decent, and throughout the whole management there is no indication of anything in the shape of slurring; but, on the contrary, a desire ap- pears to be manifested of doing the thing as it ought to be done, “ yer know.” Mr. Mapleson calls his company “ Her Ma- jesty’s Opera.” Well, we don’t wan’t to quar- Tel with him on this account—although what Queen Victoria has to do with it we're at a loss to conceive. We know that Mr. Mapleson’s ra house is usually styled “ Her Majesty's heatre; but he is wofully mistaken if he imagines that anyone in this country but an Anglicised snob cares a brass farthing where his company comes from—not if it were the King of the Cannibal Island's own private troupe, and patronized by all the descendants of those who came over with the Conqueror. Americans prefer judging such matters on their own intrinsic merits. Puck has judged, and the verdict is a favora- ble one, or he would not have immortalized Mr. Mapleson’s company gratuitously, as in this week's most brilliant cartoon. The advent of so well organized an opera is an important event in our musical annals. It deserves full and ample recognition. It isa gain to art, to refinement—to everything that helps to round off the rough corners of our social life and improve our civilization. Puck wishes Mr. Mapleson success, and will do his best to contribute towards it. He knows the difficulties under which an_impressario has to labor. Now if Gerster would only fall well, and people would crowd the Academy every opera night, what more could Puck and Man- ager Mapleson desire ? NORTH BRITISH FINANCIAL RECTITUDE. Norwss pleases John Bull more than DW to havea slap at Brother Jonathan, He never tires of pointing a moral in con- nection with any little social, political or com- mercial crookedness that may occasionally ex- cite the notice of our community. How the old humbug chides us for our wic- ess. How he turns up the whites of his es his head deprecatingly, and in way a tear, remarks that these misera- ble, unprincipled Yankees have really no honor about them, “What can you expect, yer know," from a parcel of people who are destitute of a queen and royal family; who have never been blessed with an established church, and are en- tirely ignorant of the nature of a hereditary legislature, which consists largely of a lot of ignorant noodles, who labor under the impres- sion that they are of different flesh and blood from other men. “We don’t want our institutions American- ized,” he says, when any conscientious reformer ventures to remark mildly that it it is about time that the incubus of royalty and aristo- cracy was removed from the shoulders of the overburdened taxpayers. These remarks are suggested by the recent bank collapse in Glasgow. We have had Tweed rings, Jay Cookes and Freedmen’s banks, but scarcely anything so lively, so diverting, so audaciously, ridiculously absurd as this Scotch banking reel. But our British cousins not only have banks that fail, but they don’t eyen manage as well as we do for the directors of such concerns. They are sadly behind the age in this respe They bungle the matter terribly. Vulgar war- rants are issued, and coarse detectives are de- spatched to arrest the refined and elegant gen- tlemen, who have not exercised as much judg- ment in the management of the bank’s funds as is usually considered the correct thing. There is altogether too much lack of finesse and delicacy in John Bull’s methods. In our glorious country, the arrest, trial, conviction, and length of sentence of such enterprising financiers would be in the inverse ratio of their political influence. It is unfortunate for these poor fellows that Glasgow is not New York, and that John Kelly is not boss, and that none’ of them are Tammany coroners. It was dread- ful want of foresight on the part of the pro- moters not to have established that bank here. It is true we do occasionally manage to pun- ish a wrongdoer who is apparently smart and respectable; but then it will generally be found that his head wasn’t level enough to become a politician. In this Glasgow business, however, it is not at all improbable that these directors, not bein, American politiciansand innocent of Mr. Kelly’s acquaintance, will suffer by a miscarriage of justice, perhaps, to the tune of ten or twenty years, POTTER THE SCRUPULOUS. Mr. Lewis Potter, an amateur gospelist, formerly a director of the Bank of Glasgow, and who has now been directed to jail for swindling, is a remarkably conscientious but not a very consistent individual. He is not quite such a hater of newspapers as Denis Kearney, but nothing conld ever induce him to read Monday's papers, because most of the work on them was done on Sunday. A man so awfully pious as Mr. Potter is really too good for this world, and it was high time that his martyrdom should take place. Saint Potter may not be a Sabbath-breaker, but he is scarcely a logican. Nature doesn’t let up on any day in her work. So far as we are aware the sun rises on the Lord's day of the Chris- tians, the Saturday of the Jews, and the Friday of the Mahometans, as if nothing particular had happened. It is true, we have not often been up early enough to see if it really does rise— but perhaps this may be taken for granted. Showers of rain, and even e1rthquakes, have been known to occur on Sunday, and while Mr. Potter doesn’t object to his particular deity carrying on on Sunday, as if it were just like any other day of the week, he won’t allow a poor compositor to set up his copy, or an un- fortunate night editor to do a few hours work before 12 o'clock of Sunday night. Mr. Potter will be good enough to explain at his early convenience; but Puck wishes him, at the same time, to understand that he (Puck) has no objection to a quiet public holiday one day in seven. Purkerings. Lorp Newry says that the best policy is hon- esty—especially if it’s poor Montague's policy of insurance, Recister. Oh, yes, we've attended to the register; but we shan’t use it until we get colder weather. In Spain, a cooper has been trying to shoot the King. That's the very thing we're trying to do here with E. Cooper. ‘The Southern papers won't have to yel/ any more, as the fever cases are now getting ow. (Chucked into the office volcano.) CHAPLAIN BEECHER is to lecture to enable his regiment to go to Canada to celebrate the Queen's birthday. Queen Elizabeth, of course. Tue Emperor of Japan has twelve subor- dinate wives in addition to the regular Empress. No lack er wives round there,— Phila, Bulletin. Are they all named Fanny ? Joun Ketty, Talmage and Beecher must please excuse our handling them without gloves. ‘The fact is, we can’t get a pair, size three-and- a-haif.: They’re all locked up in the Custom House. , Don't scratch your ticket. Get the kind of ticket that doesn’t need scratching. Should inexorable fate, however, impel you to scratch your ticket, vote first, and then take your ticket home and scratch it. Or, for a few cents, you might hire a boy to scratch it for you. comicbooks.com