Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 04, April 23, 1870 | Page 4

an intellectual feast."
_All the Middle-aged Ladies, wiping away the tear of sensibility_. "This is something worth seeing! How can people be so frivolous as to go to see comedies?"
All the Young Ladies. "Isn't BOOTH perfectly splendid? Isn't he magnificent? You should have seen his CLAUDE MELNOTTE; it was so perfectly lovely."
_All the Ushers, each to the other_. "Have another chew?"
_Worldly-Minded Person to Congenial Reprobate_. "Let's hear MOLLENHAUER once more, and then go."
But MOLLENHAUER'S violin ceases to weep, and the curtain rises again. The remainder of the play proceeds in due solemnity. MACBETH has the usual fit of delirium tremens at the banquet scene, where the nobility of Scotland--one of whom wears low shoes, Oxford tie pattern--drink with national ardor, and don't take the slightest interest in MACBETH'S hallucinations. Lady MACBETH afterward enjoys her own little private delirium in a gorgeous night-dress, and MACBETH is finally done for by MACDUFF, who can outfight and outhowl him with perfect ease. The tragedy being at last over, the audience disperses with solemn steps and slow; the men and elderly ladies still whispering their stereotyped chorus of praise, and the young ladies adding to their panegyrics of BOOTH ecstatic admiration of Lady MACBETH'S night-dress.
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."
"Didn't somebody say of WASHINGTON that "Providence made him childless, that the nation might call him father?" Somebody ought to say of Lady MACBETH that she was made childless, that no one might call her mother-in-law. Neat thing that! Somebody ought to send it to PUNCHINELLO. By Jove! what a mother-in-law that woman would have made. Or what a landlady; with the Weird Sisters to prepare the morning hash!"
"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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Here are meat and drink united, Life, indeed, in this we see; Who'd exchange so rich a fluid For the baser _eau de vie_?
Give us, then, no ale nor porter, Logwood wine, nor other drugs; But a glass of sparkling water Filled with sportive little bugs.
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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.
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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.
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[Illustration: "HO! HANGELINA, HANGELINA HADAMS, COME TO THE HALLEY-WINDOW AND SEE A 'OSS WITH HIS 'OOFS TURNED UP!"]
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OUR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. (BY ATLANTIC CABLE.) DOWNING STREET, LONDON, April 10, A.M.
I have, as ordered, made extensive arrangements for a world-wide correspondence for PUNCHINELLO. Knowing your want of confidence in the party called, so truly and briefly, the "_Press Ass,_" who sends over accounts of horse-races, etc., with an occasional item of news, I have wires connecting this office with Paris, Madrid, Rome, and other places of consequence. A special delegate of PUNCHINELLO has been already admitted to a seat in the OEcumenical Council. Pope Pius remarked kindly that he was the only person there who honestly told what he came for. His Holiness enjoyed, also, a hearty laugh at his first interview; the subject being the proper title and costume of our delegate. It was concluded, as he was somewhat dark in complexion, to