The necessary ingredients of a Christmas punch are typified in this cartoon by four female forms. The verses that accompanied it in the Christmas PUCK for 1888 were as follows: “These forms divine Must in one combine For the Punch that PUCK is preparing-- And the dark-eyed form Is the spirit warm, With the wild Bacchante bearing. “The sweet-faced fair Puts the sugar there, Like Charity bland and placid. And Satire’s the jade Who lends lemon aid For a dash of the needful acid. “Calm Wisdom, too, May water the brew To temper, not quench, your laughter-- Yet water comes best-- With the keenest zest-- PUCK thinks, on the morning after.” [Illustration] [Illustration: INDEX] Page A Harmless Explosion 27 A Humiliating Spectacle 67 A Little Change; or, Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows 3 A Merry Christmas to All 47 A Midsummer Day’s Dream 103 An Attack on our Outer Ramparts 15 Arbitration is the True Balance of Power 155 A Russian Nocturne 107 “A Sail! A Sail!” 51 At Last! 95 Between Slavery and Starvation 167 Blaine Leaving the Capitol--“I Go--But I return” 79 Consistency 207 Consolidated 11 First Annual Picnic of the “Knights of Labor” 151 “For Whatsoever a Man Soweth, that Shall He also Reap” 159 Frederick III. of Germany--The End of a Brave Life 123 Good Gracious! 135 He Beats Barnum 139 Helping the Rascals In 83 In Memoriam Emperor William I. 115 In the Clutches of the Monster 183 It isn’t the Cowl that Makes the Monk 211 Just the Difference 43 Let us have Peace, now a President’s Elected 59 Napoleon’s Retreat 195