Puck — January 22, 1879 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK. No. 13 North William Street, New York. VOR SALE BY ALL NEWS DEALERS. Terms To Sunscriners One Copy one year, or ss numbers... One Copy. six months, or 26 numbers. One Copy for thirteen weeks... Posvace Fran. . JOS. KEPPLER. ‘A. SCHWARZMANN. ..H. C. BUNNER, SPECIAL NOWICES. Pucx is on Sale in Londoo, at the News Agency of Messrs. HENRY F. GILLIG & CO. 449, Strand, Channe Cross, and at THE WILLMER & ROGERS NEWS COMPANY, 11, Bou- verie Street, Pleet Street. Amencans in Paris, hitherto reduced to ‘‘Punch."* “Fun"’ and “*Judy."" will now find their natural paper on file at the ‘Herald’, Obie, gy Avence ce Operas ‘Ws cannot undertake to return rejected communications, and to this rule we can make no exception. Remittances by Money Order, etc., are to be to Krrrer & SCHWARZMANN. Our advertising friends are only required to pay bills presented on the billneads of Puc, with out stamp. urrwesseD thereon. KEPPLER &@SCHWARZMANN. adi CONTENTS. The Dictator as a Poet. Why, indeed tillus, ““ Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley.” Honesty, thy Name is Humbug. ‘The Great German Ringmaster, One Man Pleased. The Theatres. ill. | Axswaxs rox Twx Axxsous. ‘Two Japanese Stories. Puck's Excnances. ‘Mariage 4 la Mode. ‘The Indian ‘*Difficulty."" KERINGS. ‘The Theorist on the Elevated. Pucx’s Army Bill. The Gospel Tent—poem. Question’ and Austere MARIAGE A LA MODE. T has often been flung in the teeth of Americans that we have no homesteads; that like young ducklings we leave father and mother as soon as we are able to peck, and sail away on our own account, It is also a sneer of our British cousins that “the Yankees have no blawsted grandfathers, bai Jove, you know!” There is a certain amount of solid truth in these assertions which makes us squirm, to put it mildly, when thrust under our noses, and makes us wish that all foreign critics were near us and that we were the hind hoofs of a mule. But worse remains to tell. The fact is almost too horrible to be told in a respectable paper like Puck, and should rather be touched by the bold Talmage. But the fact remains that we are fast approaching that terrible condition of affairs in which our mothers will be mysteries and our fathers nyths. A woman who marries in Massachusetts, and gets divorced there,—the court giving the cus- tody of the children to the father;—who after- wards hies herself to subsequent marriages and divorces in Illinois, Indiana and in other parti- bus infidelium during a course of years of very much friskiness, mus? get a little confoosed about who are, and who are not, her offspring. And if in the Indian summer of her buxom life she makes eyes at a stalwart youth who has never read the late Mr. Weller’s solemn re- marks regarding widders—how can she be sure she is not courting some of her former sons, by some of her former husbands? But people will marry, Heaven help ‘em! and what is to be the result if our continually migrating and much-divorced community don’t know whether, at some previous period, they may not have been the fathers or mothers of their swect- hearts? Ina little town, near the centre of civiliza- tion, the inhabitants are all Duxburys, Bungers or Boyds, The Boyds married the Bungers and their offspring married into the Duxburys, Then these offspring roamed around for marriage among the Bungers; and the Bungers went in for the Boyds; and the Duxburys followed suit promiscuously, until every man’s wife is his uncle, and every woman's husband is his great- aunt—or something of that nature—and all are spavined, ringboned, and idiots, * This is but a mild effect of intermarriages between blood relations; but what will it be if fathers and mothers in the West marry their old-time offspring long ago abandoned in the East! Age has nothing to do with it; Venuses of 70 are marrying Adonises of 17 every day, and reversing the ages of the sexes the other side does the like. _ A sort of matrimonial tree, much like the genealogical tree of our ances- tors, to be braided down the back of ladies’ dresses, showing, in brief the histories of their Marriages and Divorces might prevent many a man espousing his mother, or being enamored of his previous daughter. As to the bright Beyond—well, this is rather asubject for the Zion’s Herald or the Golden Censer than for Puck; but will some of our very much divorced lady friends think how in- convenient it must be when Peter unlocks the portals to them, to see half-a-dozen former hus- bands floating, with outstretched wings at them, and each claiming his prey ? THE INDIAN « DIFFICULTY.” HOSE two doughty Generals, Schurz and Sheridan, are fighting a bloodless war about the management of the Indians— and meanwhile the Indians quietly freeze and starve. After a while the Indians will dig up their hatchets, and settlers’ scalps will be “lifted”; and settlers’ homes will be burned. But the doughty Schurz and the equestrian Sheridan will still keep up their wordy warfare and spill much—printer’s ink. A very wearied public sigh as they open their morning papers and see the head lines which inform them that Sheridan has poured a broad- side of type at Schurz, or that Schurz has ar- rayed his newspaper columns, in battle array, against Sheridan. Fortunately, the people, excepting editors, do not read these long accusations and counter- accusations, and so the list of suicides from melancholia are not perceptibly increased. It would be more manly, and certainly more pleasant reading to the people, if these dis- tinguished warriors would meet in the field— say around the nio-Washington Monument— with Ben Butler as Umpire (he could have an eye on both, you know), and settle this thing a la militaire. If their peres had no sabres, which goes without saying, they can take the American Revolver or the breech-bursting Columbiad. This might squelch these newspaper warriors —if not both, at least one. Which would make the average man rejoice. And meantime, the Indians!. The Indians about whom all this fuss-and-feathers has been made—tney can freeze and starve, and they can break the pipes of peace which they had smoked in honor of their Great White Father. As they bury their starved dead they can dig up the hatchet, and a horrified public will havelndian atrocities served up to it with its matutinal muffins and coffee. Looking at the whole subject in that calm and thoughtful man- ner which is the custom of this journal, it seems as if Messrs. Sheridan and Schurz might, with great advantage to their reputations, attend more to the duties for which a generous nation pays them, and give the newspapers a rest. Puckerings. Is the art of landscape painting acquired easely? Wuy do some men drink every time they meet? Do girls in a printing office like men to set up with? : ‘To’ rough a man may seem, a thorough man he may be. Is a printer considered a gourmand when he is particular about his take? County CLerk GumBteton says “One book in my hand is worth two in Bush's. A Broapway hatter engages the services of a poet to concoct his advertisements, A verse-a- tile writer, forsooth. ‘THe Mirror calls Rosnati ‘‘the Ballarat Pet.” If this style of nomenclature is to be adopted, we shall soon hear of Miss Abbott as “the Skowhegan Darling.” Puck thinks that Messrs. Sharpe and McDon- nell, who were reprieved after being executed, have good grounds of action against the sheriff, or perhaps that functionary might be induced to apologize. ‘Tnere’s a Justice in London named Cockburn, And a region denominate Holborn, And according to rules Of the best English schools ‘These rhyme to a Place that’s called Woburn, A Man named Wilson, in Boston, killed his wife recently because she knew more than he did. If all the husbands in the country were to offer to follow the example, nine women out of every ten would die rather than admit the absence of the alleged provocation. ‘THe Benevolent Protective Order of Hat Checks will give a ball on February 6th. ‘The advertisement states that ‘‘tickets are limited,” but neglects to mention to what number. An “Elk” ticket admits “a gent and two ladies.” This is all very well for gents,” but why should individuals who are not “gents” be excluded ? Some names are invented, and some things done, just to bother and baffle poor, hard- working paragraphers. Here’s the bark Themis, just arrived from London, after a voyage of 110 days, the longest time on record. Just our luck! If it had been the shortest, imagine how neatly we could have kicked our Greek Pronouncing Lexicon out of the window, and have worked in a little squib to the effect that Zhemis-took-less time, &c., &c. 'Tis a hard world. Puck acknowledges the receipt of 5 cents from “‘Sympathizer” for poverty stricken Wm. H. Vanderbilt, towards purchasing for the poor fellow some “personal property” to enable him to ease his conscience by paying his taxes. NOTICE, No. 9 (issue of May 7th, 1877), No. 14 (issue of Fune sth, 1877), & No. 26 (issue of September sth, 1877), No. 56 (issue of April zrd 1878) of * Puck” will be Dought at this office, No. 13 North William Street, at full price. comicbooks.com