Various

“ Why should boys be hired to pray, and women to sing for me? Why should I be told by the preacher that I am perfectly good, when I have just confessed that I am a 'miserable sinner?' Why do you call this service religious, and Rip Van Winkle theatrical? Believe me, St. APOLLOS deserves a place among your 'Plays and Shows' quite as much as does BOOTH'S or WALLACK'S."'
And I to her—"St. APOLLOS shall take its proper place in PUNCHINELLO'S show. But permit me to say that you are very unreasonable. What do you go to church for? To be made uncomfortable and dissatisfied with yourself?" ”

“ If the citizen drinks hugely, the candidate must be able to keep up with him; and to have a sponge stomach equal to the absorption of quarts, and even of gallons, is a piece of excellent good fortune for the man who is fool enough to want to go to Congress, instead of enjoying the delights of obscurity. Verily, he has his reward. He who suffers in the gin-mills of New York may recover himself in the Champagne-sparkling saloons of Washington. ”

“ Are you a Voter? Show yourself to be such indeed, by voting all day, all the time, and at all the polling-places! Are you a Candidate? Show yourself to be a good one by keeping your mouth shut (except for drinking) and your pocket open! ”

“ Alas! it proves a rotten potato to the poor Candlestick-maker. Out sallies the Butcher with his cleaver, and his boys with their knives, and by his side the Baker with his rolling-pin, followed by his crowd of friends armed with toasting-forks and cutting-irons, presenting a formidable front to the astonished JOHNNY and his handful of apprentices. ”

“ Heedless of everything but his dread intention, he rapidly ties the rope about his throat, and is in the act of throwing forward his whole weight upon it, when there is a sharp jerk of the rope, he is drawn up about three feet in the air, and, before he can collect his thoughts, is as abruptly let down upon his feet again. ”

“ They bear awhile in silent envy the annoying sight of the rollicking crowd and the joyful JOHNNY with his troop of apprentices, who have all they can possibly do to attend to their numerous customers, and who receive their broad pieces of money with a careless ease that makes the fingers of the lookers-on tingle. ”

“ SKAMMERHORN to skirmish with the world of dry-goods clerks for one of those alarming sacrifices in feminine apparel which woman unselfishly, yet never needlessly, is always making, FLORA sat alone in her new home, working the latest beaded pin-cushion of her useful life. Frequently experiencing the truth of the adage, that as you sew so shall you rip, the fair young thing was passing half her valuable time in ripping out the mistaken stitches she had made in the other half ”

“ Why waste your best years in waiting for proposals from a class of Northern men who occasionally expect that their brides, also, shall have property, when here I offer you the name and hand of a loving Southern gentleman, who only needs the paying off of a few mortgages on his estate in the South to be beyond all immediate danger of starvation? ”

“ Come home with me to-night, and we'll talk of starting a Religious Weekly together. That's your only successful American Comic Paper."
"By Jove! so it is!" bawls JEREMY BENTHAM, like one possessed. "I never thought of that before! I'm with you, my boy." And, hastily slipping the rope from his neck, he hurries to his friend's side.
"And you, Uncle JACK—look at this!" exclaims Mr. E. DROOD, bringing from behind his back and presenting to the melancholy organist a thing that looks, at first glance, like an incredibly slim little black girl, headless, with no waist at all, and balanced on one leg. ”

“ There has been nothing said to make one feel disagreeably discontented with one's self, nor has there been any impolite suggestions as to the undesirable future of anybody, except the low wretches who, of course, don't go to any church. ”

“ But no; he has no time to pay attention to petty annoyances; he is too busy getting up a huge candlestick for the Fair, and so, to smooth matters over, he sends his two enemies an invitation to view the magnificent candlestick that is to throw so much light on the world.
"He is either too stupid or too sharp for us," sighs the Baker; "we can't do anything in that way. Suppose we set up an opposition store, with one of your sons for Proprietor, and see what effect that will have."—"Good, it shall be done," says the Butcher. ”

“ Let us keep at it till we demolish it, and thus put a stop to all future controversy. After killing the old fox, don't leave a nest of young ones to grow up and bite us. What is their loss is our gain, you know. ”

“ Accordingly he writes a remonstrance to his friend the Butcher, telling him "he wishes no rival in the trade. He has always had a monopoly, and he intends to keep it." His apprentices back him up in his assertions, and declare they are ready to die for him and their candlesticks. The advent of the messenger is noticed with inward rejoicing by the twain, but, when he presents his remonstrance, he is immediately kicked out of doors.
That is the last feather, the one straw too much, and the excitable little Candlestick-maker at once challenges his opponents to deadly combat. ”

“ The audience evidently feels their solemn import. The young lady and the young male person who sit immediately in front of me clasp surreptitious hands as they bow their heads to repeat the confession that they are miserable sinners, and she whispers by no means softly to him of the "frightful bonnets the SMITH girls have on." Presently the recitative of the clerk is succeeded by a contest in chanting—probably for the championship—by two rival choruses of shrill-voiced boys, who hurl alternate verses of the Psalms at one another with the fiercest intensity. ”

“ Consider the abruptness, Sir, of this question—this selfish question, as it turned out, after a grim and gruff silence of an hour and a quarter. Could not this unamiable person (called a man) , have prepared me for it by a few moments' affable conversation? Why should he dare intrude his "Is this ELIZABETH?" with such brutal abruptness? Not a sudden proposal from one of my numerous suitors could have startled me more.
Look at the question, Sir, as pointing at my supposed Christian name (I have one, but it is not ELIZABETH, nor yet ELIZA) ; can you imagine anything more odiously familiar? ”

“ About seventy of the artists connected with the illustrated press of this city and Boston have contributed drawings for the benefit of the family of the late WILLIAM NEWMAN, formerly one of the designers of the London Punch, and who for the last ten years held a prominent position among the graphic artists of this city. To this move on the part of kindred spirits, PUNCHINELLO cries "Bravo!" The kindly worker who has passed away from our midst would have been foremost himself in moving thus when death or sickness had fallen upon a brother of his guild. ”

“ By a common instinct they all swarm in upon him, craning their heads far over each other's shoulders to secure a share of the Providential shelter. The glare of the great bonfire falls upon the scene; the rain pours down in torrents: they crowd in upon him on all sides, until what was once a stately Ritualistic man resembles some tremendous monster with seventeen wriggling bodies, thirty-four legs, and an alpaca canopy above all. ”

“ Here, for instance, is an obnoxious candidate who is a quiet, respectable, honest, church-going family man. The height of mendacious talent is shown in representing this paragon of virtue to be a brawler, a blackguard, a swindler, an infidel, and a bad husband and father. If he mildly denies that he is any such person, the proper course is to call him all the unpleasant names over again, adding, by way of clincher, that he is popularly supposed to have murdered his grandmother. ”

“ Soon an empty store adjoining is hired, and being put in order, when the hitherto blind Proprietor wakes up to the fact that there is a coalition against him, and that he had better be stirring or he will lose his trade. ”

“ The astounded hearer feels the rope tugging at his own neck again, and, with a half comprehension of the situation, calls "Stop!" in a suffocating voice.
"Who's there?" comes from the darkness.
"JEREMY BENTHAM, late proprietor of first-class American Comic Paper.—Died of Comic Serial.—Want to hang myself," is the jerky reply from the other side.
"Got your own rope, sir?"
"No. One fell down on my shoulders just as I was wishing for it; but it seems to be too elastic."
"That's the other end 'f my rope, air," rejoins the second voice, as in wrath. ”

“ She is not a New Yorker—or, as Webster would probably say,—a New Yorkeress. She is rural in her ways and thoughts, a daisy of the fields. Never having seen the interior of a city church, she asks me to go with her to any Protestant church that I may select. So we go to the shrine of St. APOLLOS, which, I am told, is regarded as one of the most fashionable houses in the city. ”

“ To-morrow night we must all be in Bumsteadville. I will tell you why as we walk."
CHAPTER XXVII.
SOLUTION.
In the darkness of a night made opaque by approaching showers, a man stands under the low-drooping branches of the edge of a wood skirting the cross-road leading down to Gospeler's Gulch.
"Not enough saved from the wreck even to buy the merciful rope that should end all my humor and impecuniosity!" he mutters, over his folded arms and heaving chest. "I have come to this out-of-the-way suburb to end my miserable days, and not so much as one clothes-line have I seen yet. ”

“ DICKEN'S decease no one should have conceived the idea of writing a sketch of that illustrious author. It is perhaps too much to require that some competent person prepare his biography, but the public have a right to expect at least a few reminiscences. I am persuaded to sketch the following imperfect outlines only from a conviction that the great novelist has in this respect been neglected. ”

“ When a sentimental young man seeks a private interview with a marriageable young woman, and recklessly refuses at the outset to retain at least his cane for the solution of the intricate conversational problem of what to do with his hands, it is an infallible sign that some madly rash intention has temporarily overpowered his usual sheepish imbecility, and that he may be expected to speak and act with almost human intelligence. ”

“ The preying of politicians is of a kind which we trust the clergy will never seek to imitate; but now that Congress has undertaken to supervise this matter of election, there no knowing what it may become in the future. ”

“ The middle-aged men evidently feel that he will make no mistake worth noticing, and so go to sleep as calmly as though they were at BOOTH'S THEATRE. The middle-aged ladies contemplate the dresses of their neighbors, and the young people flirt with cautious glances. ”

“ The Proprietors and Publishers of THE AMERICAN CHEMIST, having purchased the subscription list and stock of the American reprint of the CHEMICAL NEWS, have decided to advance the interests of the American Chemical Science by the publication of a Journal which shall be a medium of communication for all practical, thinking, experimenting, and manufacturing scientific men throughout the country. ”

“ A Correspondent suggests that in No. 30 our artist has given Mr. C. A. DANA, in representing him as refusing a bribe with virtuous indignation, a two-cent-imental an expression. In reply, Mr. PUNCHINELLO—although his own opinion is that the mistake has been in making it rather dollar-ous than cent-imental—would refer his correspondent to the artist.
A QUERY FOR SOL-UTION.
Is it a fact that, because Sol is the Latin for Sun, being on the Sun is therefore equivalent to being a SOLON?
TO THE DIPLOMATISTS OF THE HUB.
Whether the Boston dip is a penny one or not, it is nevertheless scandalous. ”

“ Flippant social satirists cannot dwell with sufficient sarcasm upon the difference between the invincible amiability affected by artless girls in society and their occasional bitterness of aspect in the privacy of home ”

“ And I hereby challenge all fast-sailing yachts of over 100 tons burthen, and under 50, to a 15-mile race dead to windward and back again alive.
(Signed) ASHBURY.
Upon this your reporter manned the yard-arms, fired a salute of 100 guns, and directed the Oar-acular to back water; thereby giving the Dauntless the lead, which she retained up to the end of the race. By the clever management of her Tacks she succeeded in completely Nailing the Cambria. ”

“ My sister, as on may have heard, has accepted Gospeler SIMPSON'S proposal, by mail, for her hand, and is already so busy quarrelling with his mother that she is no longer any company for me. My fate is in your hands; it is in woman's power to either make or marry the roan who loves her—"
"Provided, always, that her legal guardian consents," interrupted the benignant voice of Mr. ”

“ Merely waiting to granulate one more clove, Mr. BUMSTEAD settles the rope about his neck anew, squints around under the wet towel in a curiously ghastly manner, and thus addresses the meeting:—
"Ladies and gen'l'men—I've listened to y'r impudence with patience, and on any other 'casion would be happy to see y'all safe home. At present, however, Mr. BENTHAM and I desire to be left alone, if 'ts all th' same t' you. You can come for the bodies in th' morning."
"BENTHAM! BENTHAM!" calls the Gospeler, "I can't see you acting in that way, old friend. ”

“ The fact is, no man was ever treated so badly or so seldom as I have been. Others have "waked up" and found themselves famous. I've practised waking for years, and never found myself in fame, or anything else, excepting energetic "tailors' bills," and an occasional square meal. ”