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Page 13
_[The Simpleton from the Wilderness is terribly excited.]_
"I warn 'em not to serve _me_ so!
They'll rue it, if they do!
No axle, wheel, nor rail must break;
No bridge must let me through!
No other train must smash up ours;
No culvert fall away;
The scaly boiler mustn't burst;
And here cows mustn't stray!
"Conductors' watches _must_ keep time;
Switch-'tenders _must_ "know beans,"
And engineers keep wide awake
And know what duty means:
And (in particular) no fiend
Must take into his head
To throw my train off down a bank
For spite, or even bread!
"What! do these dreadful things go on
That companies may thrive?
Is _profit_ the sole living thing
They care to keep alive?
Then, fellow-citizen, rouse up!
For you and I are kings!
Let us decree-and straightway _have_
A different state of things!"
["Well, you 'decree' it; and when it's done, please let me know,"
remarks the _Misanthropic Traveller._]
* * * * *
Sugar-Cane.
The friends of WILLIAM TWEED, in presenting a cane to him the other
evening, desired to show the Young Democracy how many there are who
Stick to him.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE GREAT NATIONAL GAME.
OUR COLORED BROTHER. "HI YAH! STAN' BACK DAR;
IT'S DIS CHILE'S INNIN'S NOW."]
* * * * *
TUTTI TREMANDO!
Truant Bards! where are the Triumphal Odes and the Congratulatory Poems
which should have greeted Mr. PUNCHINELLO, who, after deserting his
beloved Italy, after a stormy voyage and unspeakable sea-sickness, has
arrived here with a view of settling and of becoming a citizen (having
already filed his first papers) of this magnificent Republic? Where are
the poets who should have greeted the venerable and illustrious voyager?
Imbeciles! See you not that your congratulatory work would have been
easy? That PUNCHINELLO rhymes to fellow (good) and to mellow,
(decidedly,) to say nothing of bellow, (a proper word for singers,) and
to yellow, (although into this and the sear leaf we most decidedly have
not fallen, in spite of our three or four hundred years.) Had we but
been a Prince, and called VICTORIA R. our mother, we should ere this
have been invited to balls enough to ruin our small legs, and dinners
enough to destroy our great digestion. Yet, if it should come to the
comparison of pedigrees, the Signor PUNCHINELLO feels that he could
knock these princelings into a cocked hat, (or shall we say a cocked
coronet?) Mr. PUNCHINELLO proudly knows that he is His Own Ancestor and
the Perpetual Renewer of his own Patent of Nobility.
Gentlemen poets, it is too late! We will not now have your melodious
ovations at any price! It would be a pretty piece of business indeed,
if, after sounding our own trumpet for ages, as we may say, we should
now succumb to an idiotic modesty. Do you not understand that we were
sonorously beating our own drum when the Onondaga Giant was a mere baby?
We shall continue to play upon both these private instruments. If we
consider ourselves to be wise above our fellow-creatures, witty to a
degree most extraordinary, more Senatorial by nature and experience than
most of the Potents and Graves in Washington; if we know ourselves (and
we hope we do) to be polished, polite, and profound, why should we go
hunting about for a bushel to put our light under? Away with modesty!
Can printer's ink blush? Who blames the _Tribunes_ and the _Heralds_ and
the _Worlds_ and the _Timeses_ for vaunting a circulation which seems to
defy mortal numeration? A pretty market we should have brought our fish
to, if we should now squeamishly decline to wind our own mellow horn!
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