Puck — March 5, 1879 — page 3: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK. 3 FIAT WISDOM, FROM OTTAWA, KANSAS. Women are fond of lunching on sardines— and lots of them marry ’em, Pity the Canadian fashion of dressing the hair high doesn’t extend to the shoulders, “Fare, fare, with golden hair" —Boarding- house butter, where there is a warm-headed waiter. Beapon is the name of a saloon-keeper at Kansas City. You can get whiskey with a Beadon there, “ Miss Anna Wrest, of Kasota, Minn., has fallen heir to $700,000." — Western Paper. Oh give us A. Wrest! CATAPILLAR-FRINGE is all the rage for trim- ming spring suits. Wouldn't “grasshopper” be more appropriate ? A PREACHER down east is lecturing on the subject: “Hell should be enlarged.” Good gracious! Is the death-rate of book-agents increasing ? “Veriy, the virtuous man shall be rewarded.” Jessso. But we notice that corned beef is corned beef, and that we can’t get any more for a dollar than Beecher can, A man by the name of Tunze, right here in Ottawa, has nineteen children, And for all that the family hasn’t much weight. It's the general understanding that three feet make a yard, but two feet made more than three yards from the porch of a Yancy Street residence the other evening. The old man will swear to it. A HEALTH journal says: “The clothes of different i eteey should, for sanitary reasons, be washed ay "Sanitary be hanged —we'd like to strike a laundry where they wouldn't wash our shirts apart. A HELPLESS waif on life’s cold sea, A darling week-old boy; Death hurls a dart into his heart— Alas! a wee cold boy. Now who doth know but 'tis better so Then be a weak old boy? Etus M, Ciarke. THE PRESIDENT'S DUTY. WORZILL he veto Ir? At the time when P Puc is opened and read by a long- ging world, this conundrum will have been answered; either Mr. Hayes will have said Veto to any action of Congress which dis- honored the national name for fair-dealing with other countries; or else Mr. Hayes will have allowed the bill to pass away without the Exe- cutive signature which alone can give it life. But then Kearneyfornee. That great State will secede from us! And what will we poor miserable little States—thirty-odd of us—do ‘then? We haven't any gold mines or hoodlums or cheap wines or Palace hotels or leaders like Kearney. We have institutions which teach us that this isa country of immigrants, and has been so since the days of Columbus; and that the unwritten law of the land says to all the world ‘ Welcome! Our ports are open!” But Kearneyfornia has got its Bonanza back up, and it is going to control some other portions of a somewhat populous, successful and intelligent country by bulldozing it into kicking out a lot of moon-eyed lecherous wash- board holders, ironers and diggers. And if Mr, Hayes sees fit to put his V-toes on this bill of Congress, the entire American idea as now represented at home and abroad must cease forever. Now-a-days we are entertained by the pleas- ant pictures of suddenly enriched bartenders and mule-drivers rushing over the land, and over the ocean and over Europe, with their loudly dressed wives and their display of door- knob diamonds, seeking to exhibit the Ameri- can citizen abroad. The average European when he meets an American expects to be dazzled by diamonds, saluted with a bowie- knife, and be spat over with tobacco juice. This sort of American comes from Kearney- fornee. And generally he is that sort of Ameri- can who was not born in America. So if the Kearney State secedes from us the American idea will have to be represented by such low fellows as Longfellow, who writes poetry, forsooth! And Mr. Morse and Mr. C. Field, who were merely operators of telegraph wires. And B. Franklin, who also had some ideas as to electri- city. ‘There are some other people, such as Wash. Irving, D. Webster, A. Jackson, W. H. Prescott, who tried to convey the American idea at home and abroad; but at present the Bonanza Grand Duke is our Extra-ord-inary Minister and Plenipotentiary Resident abroad. If Kearneyfornee secedes we lose this sort of Representative of our tricks and our manners here and elsewhere. And if Mr. Hayes vetoes the anti-Chinese Bill— Perhaps he will also veto the Kearneyfornee secession notion. How tHe Oxp Txinc Works. THE TENEMENT QUESTION. 'T has recently seemed proper to certain well-paid clergymen of this city to preach at the tenement houses with which their out-lying suburbs are cursed. We don’t want to carry the war into Africa, in the sense of robbing the poor African of his flannel-shirt, his cocked-hat, his soldier-coat, in pay for reading his Bible. But we are reminded that once the Governor of North Carolina, after feasting the Governor of South Carolina; and having been told by the Governor of S.C. that the same would be reciprocated, telegraphed: “T's a long time between drinks!” And therefore it seems to us that it is a long time since the eyes of the benevolent people of this city ceased to fix themselves upon Africa and looked at home. _If there is a mote in the eye of the savage of Borrioboola-Gha, there is a greater beam in the wretched eyes of the so- called civilized denizens of our horrible tene- ment houses. There is no paper—even the so- called police and sensational journals—pub- lished in this country that would dare print the facts, as reporters know them, of tenement house life in this city, When the outer world —the better-fed and better-housed world— knows anything about tenement house life, it gets it in its morning papers. And it reads: «The details are unfit for publication.” «* His Honor—t What did she say?’ « Witness—t Well, she said —- —— —— —— Or again: “« Our reporter, used as he is to scenes of total deprav- ity, finds it impossible to give any adequate description of the horrors of that house,” etc., etc. But all this time we good church people, who read our Bibles, or Korans, or What-nots, have been giving red flannel to the African sweating under 150° of Fahrenheit; while about our own doors, beside our churches, almost rub- bing against us in our daily walk, were the ter- rible Tenement Houses. Dear Bro. Smugg, when you go to your Mon- day meeting of your Conference sleek, shiny- hatted and well-umbrella’d, please find out how much money your people have spent within the last five years to convert the Heathen abroad; and how much to save the Christian at home. This is the milk in the cocoanut which we want to get at. ‘The nigger who chaws up missionaries is a disagreeable Fact, and certainly he ought to be saved. The bad, wicked Injun who cuts off our hair with a hatchet is a Sorrow, and also ought to be saved. The Heathen Chinee—well, as he gives us Clean Shirts, perhaps we can let him go his celestial way, after his own fashion. But for the man, the woman and the child who live in Tenement Houses, what shall we do for them? ‘The funny fancy of New York to-day is that Rapid Transit is our panacea for all evils. But it merely takes the Tenement House public from a down-town curse to an up-town horror. We have a Board of Health, a Building De- partment, Societies for the Prevention of Cru- elty to Animals and Children, and thousands of people who are spending hundreds of thou- sands of dollars to help the suffering poor. But still the Tenement House stands. Who will be the first to strike at the root of the evil and tear the Tenement House down? Health, morals, publid policy seem to de- mand that our poorer classes should have pro- per homes. Puck has spoken. Now for the answer! comicbooks.com