Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 04, April 23, 1870Various
General
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 04, April 23, 1870
Various
American wit and humor -- Periodicals
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 dub him Bishop of
'Ngami; which, you know, is one of those places that LIVINGSTONE (_is_
he living, though?) found out. When any body questioned him, the said
delegate was immediately to talk 'ngammon Latin; and His Holiness would
interpret it to the council, as being the African for infallibility.
It's wonderful how well this jolly dog gets on, with his dogmas and dog
Latin together.
Now for news. After all, the _most_ remarkable event has happened on
your side of the water; but as Philadelphia is further from New York
than New York is from Philadelphia, (the latter is _so_ slow,) I don't
believe you have heard it yet. There is a railroad, well known
thereabouts, going to _Germantown._ Well, the event is, that the board
of directors of that road have--will you believe it? I hardly
do--ordered a _new car_--a palace-car! The way it happened was that,
owing to the large use of cattle-cars on the Pacific Railroad, no more
second-hand cars could be got for a month or two, bad enough for the
directors to buy; and there wasn't a builder in the country willing to
make their kind of cars to order.
On this side of the "big pond" we have had nothing so laughable as the
MORDAUNT case. The charge of the presiding judge to the Prince of Wales
has not been correctly reported. I am told that he spoke thus: "Your
Royal Highness is advised that, on this occasion, it is not expected
that your Royal Highness should tell the truth, unless your Royal
Highness pleases; indeed, your Royal Highness is rather advised not to
tell the truth. Now, will your Royal Highness, acting under this advice,
please to say, whether he did, or did not, ever do any thing naughty?"
Some one said to me at the time--are there not _some_ mordants that will
dye beyond whitewashing? But I believe that Wales always was moral, is
moral, and always will he moral, (Balmoral!) Now, this last assertion I
call news! Is it reliable?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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