When we consider how cosmopolitan is the population of these United States, and how freely we have drawn upon all the races of Europe, it is very curious that the puppet-show does not flourish in our American cities as it flourishes in many of the towns on the other side of the Western Ocean. The shrill squeak of Punch is not infrequent in the streets of London--altho it may not now be heard as often as it was a score of years ago. In Paris in the gardens of the Tuileries and of the Luxembourg, and again in the Champs-Elysées where the children congregate in the afternoon, there are nearly half a dozen enclosures roped off and provided with cane chairs so that spectators, old and young, may be gladdened by the vision of Polichinelle, and by the pranks of Guignol. Yet even in Paris there are not now as many puppet-shows as there were fifty years ago; and in Italy and in Germany the traveler fails to find as frequent exhibitions of this sort as he used to meet with in the years that are gone. Apparently there is everywhere a waning interest in the plays performed by the little troop of personages animated by the thumb and fingers of the invisible performer. And perhaps the declining vogue of this diminutive drama in old Europe is one reason why it has never achieved a wide popularity in young America. In France the puppet-show is stationary; it has its fixed habitation and abode; and its lovers can easily discover where to find it when they seek the specific pleasure it alone can provide. In England the spectacle of Punch and Judy is ambulatory; the bloodthirsty hero and the bereaved heroine roam the streets at large, and their arrival in any one avenue of traffic can never be predicted with certainty. In the United States poor Punch has never ventured to show his face in the open street, seeking the suffrages of the casual throng; he is not peripatetic but intermittent, and he makes his appearances only in private houses, and only when he is sent for specially to entertain the children's party. Here in America Punch is still a stranger to the broad public; he has an exotic flavor; he suggests Dickens, somehow; and he must be wholly unknown to countless thousands who would rejoice to make his acquaintance and to laugh at his terrible deeds.