Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 03, April 16, 1870Various
General
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 03, April 16, 1870
Various
American wit and humor -- Periodicals
which never fails to amuse and instruct. Mr. COX has been making a
shocking speech about the tariff. Mr. COX remarked that he once thought
there was nothing like it. But I have been travelling about since, he
said, with a summer-mote in my own buck eye in search of Winter Sunbeams
in my Corsican brother's. I have been in Corsica, and of Corsican find a
parallel of the latitude of this tariff in the leg ends of the robbers,
by which I do not mean the ankles of the Forty Thieves, whom I had
the pleasure of seeing in company with my "constituents of the Sixth
Congressional District of the City of New-York." Well, then, there was
a robber in Corsica of the name of PELEG HIGGINS, who found that his
business in the Robbin Rednest line was suffering from the opposition
of several other robbers in the neighbor and robbin' hood, who "went
through" his victims, to use an expressive phrase common among my
constituents, before he had his chance. PELEG thereupon went to the
priest of the parish, who assessed the sins of the robbers of that
vicinity, and offered him half the proceeds of his future crimes if
he would increase his tariff of penances on the opposition firms. The
priest drew up a schedule of the Whole Duties of Man. It was practically
prohibitory on murders, and robberies were assessed from sixty to eighty
per cent _ad valorem_. The other robbers remonstrated. The priest said
he would protect his parishioners. PELEG is now very much respected,
and owns an iron and log rolling establishment. The other robbers were
driven out of the business. That, Mr. COX said, was the origin of the
Protective Tariff.
Mr. KELLEY wished to know how much British Gold Mr. COX had received
for his infamous harangue. As for him, he was bound to protect his
constituents (Mr. COX, "Parishioners;" and laughter on the Democratic,
or other, side of Mr. KELLEY'S mouth.) As to the charge that he was
behind the age, it was absurd. Every Philadelphian knew that nobody
could be behind the Age. He advocated the principle expressed by the
Pennsylvanian bard,
You tickle me and
I'll tickle you.
Mr. LOGAN said the army ought to be reduced; and he treated with scorn
General SHERMAN'S intimation that it ought not to be reduced. General
SHERMAN had once told him that there was a Major-General whom the army
could spare. He (LOGAN) was a Major-General at the time. He did not know
whom General SHERMAN meant. He did not see the use of the regular army,
or of West-Point. In his State a man could get along just as well
without knowing any thing; and what was the sense of teaching officers?
The more they knew, the more they wanted to know. Give them an inch, and
they would take an ell. He didn't know what an ell an ell was, and he
didn't want to. He was willing to provide a staff, but not a crutch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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