Puck, 1879-04-23 · page 5 of 16
Puck — April 23, 1879 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"High Art in Washington"** satirizes proposed government art patronage. The six panels mock bureaucratic incompetence in funding visual arts: congressmen appear clueless about art, requesting practical portraits instead; a "palate" scene shows gentlemen literally making themselves "at home" in an artist's studio; senators haggle over costs. The satire targets the Appropriation Committee's ignorance about aesthetic merit. **"Fitznoodle in America"** is a serialized narrative mocking British attitudes toward American marriage. The protagonist appears to be a British gentleman discussing—somewhat condescendingly—his fascination with American women, particularly a Miss Marguerwite who married an American. The text ridicules both British snobbery and American social ambitions, suggesting cultural anxiety about transatlantic courtship and class.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
PUCK. HIGH ART IN WASH INGTON, (A RESPECTFUL HINT TO THE APPROPRIATION COMMITTEE.) Tue Backcrounp, “Senator, couldn't you get me ina little bill like this 2” Cotor anp Canvas. “Fetch me a lot of Congressmen, Sam.” Putting in THE Hic Licuts, “Tf it's worth anything, it's worth that!" Tue Pat-ate. “ Make yourselves at home, gentlemen.” FITZNOODLE IN AMERICA. LXXXV. PROGRESS IN COURT- SHIP. Ya-as, severwal individuals appe-ah to take an extwaor- dinarwy amount of interwest in what I y May call my pwi- vate affai-ahs, and are verwy anxious to know what pwo- | gwess I am making inaw paying my adwesses to Miss Marguerwite. Aw I don’t know in weality whethah I ought to twouble myself to wegard the inquirwies which these aw fwiends of mine make with we- spect to the mattah; but, ye see, it is such an awfully twemendous honah faw an aw Amerwi- can girl to marwy a aw pwopah Englishman, that I'm not at all surpwised at the gweat ex- citement the pwospect of such an occurwence should cweate. ., ‘Pon my soul, it’s weally quite naturwal that it should. I don’t mean to say, ye know, that I should be the first Bwitish fellaw who had evah thought of marwying, or aw had marwied an Amerwican girl; faw Churchill, Mandeville, young Paget and othah tolerwably decent fellaws have done so; but still, ye know, no Fitznoodle evah twied the experwiment. I call at the wesidence of Miss Marguerwite quite fwequently, and I wathah think my pwe- sence is not altogethah disagweeable to her. I don’t know that she thinks that I am stwictly handsome, nor do I think she is terwibly daz- zled by my ancestwy and the historwical twa- ditions of my gweat English wuling-wace; but | I wathah imagine that she would not consider a matwimonial alliance with a Fitznoodle alto- gethah undesirwable, Perwhaps I am flatterwing myself a twifle, but I don’t think so. Certainly Jack thinks Miss Marguerwite fairly | “ good form,” for an Amerwican, and I cannot wefwain fwom agweeing with him. She is aw bwight, aw pwetty, and not out- wageously slangy; nor is she so pwetentious as so many of the wecently enwiched Amerwi- can girls are, Aw and she isn’t wude eithah, nor diswepect- ful, nor purse-pwoud, as are the gweatah pwo- ortion of similar twibes of female cweatures fe-ab. Ya-as, and Jack says also that she has a plucky sort of patwiotism for which he has.a fairwish amount of admirwation. She wemarked to me on a wecent occasion that she didn’t considah that I was such a f-f-fool as I looked. Odd thing to say, wasn't it? Howevah I imagine it’s all wight. She pwobably meant something maw pwofound than is apparwent at first sight in the expwession. Don’t think, ye know, that she would twy to make me look quite too awfully widiculous. That would be too absurd aw. ‘Tue rich young lady who recently married a horse-car driver had taken to heart Sir Joseph Porter's pronunciamento, that “love is a front platform on which all ranks meet,” Tuts is about the time when the man who was married last September, and still believes that women are angels, gets a dreadful shock when he examines the crushed and shapeless mass, taken from the bottom of the trunk, which his wife assures him is the identical coat he wore during the honey-moon, —} comicbooks.com