Read Ebook: Punchinello Volume 1 No. 04 April 23 1870 by Various

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 186 lines and 43881 words, and 4 pages

Vol. 1. No. 4.

PUNCHINELLO

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1870.

PUBLISHED BY THE

PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY,

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

Booth's Theatre has become famous as the place where Mr. MOLLENHAUER nightly leads his admirable orchestra, and plays with exquisite skill and infinite tenderness his unrivalled violin solos.

A large and elderly audience enters the portals with subdued and mournful mien. The ushers, who, in imitation of Mr. BOOTH, do a little of the classic brow and curl business themselves, chew tobacco with an air of resigned melancholy, and spit upon the carpet, as though renouncing the pleasures of the world and the decencies of civilization.

At the first intermission of the orchestra, the curtain rises upon the three Weird Sisters. Mr. HIND is a Weird Sister, and he improves the opportunity to howl with a weirdness that draws an involuntary laugh from an irreverent young lady.

The play proceeds. An inarticulate person is brought in on a litter, who looks like a Tammany man whom some irate young Democrat has "put a head on." He indulges in an inarticulate speech, which is warmly applauded by the gallery. Then the Weird Sisters meet MACBETH and BANQUO on the heath, and Mr. HIND howls at them until the Worldly-Minded auditor blesses the memory of the Salem witch-burners. Then the King brevets MACBETH. Then Lady MACBETH reads a letter from her husband with the demonstrative energy of a Chicago Wild Woman reading the decree that divorces her from a kind and honorable husband. Then the King arrives, and MACBETH and his wife agree to kill him. Then the curtain falls, and Mr. MOLLENHAUER repays the Worldly-Minded Person for having stayed through the first act. Conversation is indulged in by the audience in subdued whispers.

And the Worldly-Minded Person, walking homeward, soliloquizes in some such strain as this: "BOOTH can't play MACBETH; for he neither looks nor understands the character. FANNY MORANT can't play LADY MACBETH as perfectly as it should be played; but she tries to do her best, and is quite respectable. Nobody else plays any part with common decency. But then the scenery is good; the Scottish nobility look sufficiently hungry and seedy, and MOLLENHAUER is superb."

"Well! BOOTH can't do every thing; and we ought not to expect it. A man who plays HAMLET as well as he does, can't possibly play MACBETH. As well might we ask TENNYSON to turn Ward politician. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for building MOLLENHAUER so splendid a theatre, and for giving us the best IAGO and the best HAMLET that we have ever seen, or ever shall see. And so, I for one am ready to forget and forgive when be fails as MACBETH, and does not succeed as ROMEO."

--MATADOR.

Grant on Cuba.

The President is really in favor of the recognition of Cuba, with a view of ultimate annexation. He wants to have his Havanas a home production.

Robbery at the Mines.

It is not strange that robberies are so frequent in the California mining regions, a country in which the mountains are full of Pyrites.

A TEMPERANCE SONG.

Strained Verses Dedicated to Unstrained Water.

BY A. FILTERER.

Bring a glass of sparkling water, Fill the goblet to the brim, Let the microscopic critters Take in it a harmless swim.

Give us, then, no ale nor porter, Logwood wine, nor other drugs; But a glass of sparkling water Filled with sportive little bugs.

Musical and Mechanical.

The coopers of New-York City intend to start an organ. It will be a hand-organ, of course, for hand-organs have been Barrel-organs from time immemorial.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New-York.

OUR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. DOWNING STREET, LONDON, April 10, A.M.

More about Yokohama. An English sailor, from Captain EYRE'S vessel, is said to have murdered a Japanese, in cold blood, to rob his house. A court sat upon the case; and, after trial, pronounced this decision: "We regret to be obliged to find, that the man, CHAN-JUN, lost his life by an incision of his throat; and that the knife which made the incision was in the hand of the sailor called BILL BLINKS, of the Bombay. While, therefore, it would have been, undoubtedly, much better if the man CHAN-JUN, and his house, had been out of the way of the said BILL BLINKS, who by their proximity was placed under a temptation, we are unwillingly compelled to regret that BLINKS should have made an unfortunate incision of this kind. We are therefore of the opinion that the said WILLIAM BLINKS ought not to be allowed to have any grog for at least six days." This very severe sentence was, we are told, afterward remitted by request of Captain EYRE.

Let me tell you of my experience, for one day, with the "Press Ass" of the Cable. On getting here, finding him to be amicable, I tried him on. He gave me, for news, to send over to PUNCHINELLO, the following:

GREAT BRITAIN.

Mr. GLADSTONE was affected last night with a severe pain in his stomach. On going to his place in the House, he was overheard to say, "It must have been that cabbage." This morning he is better.

--PRIME.

Women's Rights, Again.

Latest Fashionable Intelligence from the Plains,

INDIANS' war-hoops.

Our Future.

PUNCHINELLO believes in a future. He believes in it first for himself, second for his country, and third for other people. He considers his own future very good and gorgeous, of course. He considers that of his country as very hopeful. It has room to grow, and grows. It has appetite to eat by day and to sleep by night. It eats and sleeps. It rises in the morning refreshed and lively. It washes its face in the Atlantic, and its feet in the Pacific. It raises great eagles, great lakes and rivers, and has a very large, and wise, and honest Congress. Its members of Congress are all pure, unsullied men. Not a stain rests on their proud, marble-like brows--not much. The future of PUNCHINELLO will be, to borrow from the poet, a "big thing." Its genial, mellow, shining face will continue to beam through uncounted ages--as long as beams can be procured, at whatever cost. Its good things will be household words as long as households are held. It will keep its temper very sweet, its age very green, and its flavor very sparkling. It will help the country to get on in its future, and be always glad to give government a good turn. If government wants any money, it will be PUNCHINELLO'S pleasure and privilege to launch it out. PUNCHINELLO has faith in countries and governments, and thinks if such matters were not in existence, its own prosperity would be affected. It therefore says to government, "Go on--be good, and you'll be happy. Grow up in the way you are bent, and when you get old, you'll be there." It sees a gigantic future for the country. It sees the Polar sea running with warm water, the North Pole maintaining a magnificent perpendicularity, and the Equinoctial Line extended all around the earth, including Hoboken and Hull. It sees its millions of people happy in their golden prosperity, and also happy in a full supply of PUNCHINELLO to every family. It sees its favorite Bird of Freedom spread its wings from Maine to Oregon; from Alaska to the Gulf, and it trusts its wings will not be hurt or lose a single feather in the spread. It sees itself--PUNCHINELLO, not COLUMBIA--enter upon its thousandth volume as youthful and pretty as a June rose, and as vigorous as a colt. It sees the time when one Fourth of July will not go round the national family, and from two to half a dozen will have to be provided.

Mind your P's and Q's.

Committees of State Legislatures are apt to use very slip-shod English in drafting their bills. This should not be. How can they expect to Parse a bill unless it is couched in grammatical language?

Taking a Senator's Measure.

Apropos of a recent debate in the Senate at Washington, a paragraph states that "CARPENTER made SUMNER seem very small." The carpenter who made SUMNER is not to blame for this. In the first place, Mr. SUMNER'S Measures are very difficult to take. In the second place, the best Cabinet-makers have failed to make Mr. SUMNER appear very large. In the third and last place, Ebony, which is the only wood with which Mr. SUMNER has any affinity, is a mighty hard material to work, even when treated with the application of a Fifteenth Amendment.

The Maine Question in Massachusetts.

Trying to the Patients.

It is widely stated, though we cannot vouch for it as a fact, that the poultices used in St. Luke's Hospital are supplied from the too celebrated pavement of Fifth Avenue.

"Cometh up as a Flower."

It is stated that P?re HYACINTHE is about to take a wife.

That's right--Pair, HYACINTHE.

THE EPISODE OF JACK HORNER.

Probably there is no choicer specimen of English literature than the familiar stanza which we herewith reproduce:

"Little JACK HORNER sat in a corner, Eating his Christmas-pie, He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, And said, 'What a good boy am I!'"

Although comprised in merely four lines, it contains more instructive truths and rarer beauties than some volumes whose pages can be enumerated by the hundred. The opening line is singularly beautiful:

"Little JACK HORNER sat in a corner."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet