be purified; but this idea is Utopian, PUNCHINELLO fears. If Niagara were squirted through its halls, the water would be dirtied, but the halls would not be cleansed. Alas, poor city! Trampled under the heels of the aristocratic HONG and PENNY BUNN, what is there to hope for it? But all has not been told. There are about eight hundred thousand inhabitants in the place. Some twenty thousand of these owe small sums for unpaid taxes, averaging about nine and a quarter cents to a man. To collect these sums, an army of seventy-two thousand able-bodied men, at salaries of one thousand dollars per annum, has been commissioned by the PENNY BUNN Legislature. Alas, poor city! But all has not been told. A private firm has prevailed upon the imbecile old farmers from the western and interior counties to give them the right to build a private freight railroad through many of the principal streets of the Quaker City. This road will run through several school-house yards, and the time-tables are to be so arranged that trains shall always be due at those points at recess time. Every fiftieth private house along the lines is to have a road-station and freight-depot in its front-parlor, and all male residents on said routes are to serve in turn, without pay, as brakesmen and switch-tenders. The owners of all vehicles injured by the trains are to be heavily fined, and the families of individuals allowing themselves to be killed are to be mulcted in heavy damages. Alas, poor city! But all has not yet been told. A counterfeit tax-bill has been passed by the Legislature. All the sums handed in to the State Treasury by the tax collectors have been found to be "bogus" money. This action has been indorsed by the Legislature, and the action of that body is hereafter to be of the same character as the funds paid in by its creatures. Alas, poor city! But all has not yet been told. Colonel FORNEY intends resuming his "Occasional" letters in the _Press!_ Enough! Humanity can bear no more. Query by a Constitutional Student. When the Governor or President V-toes a bill, is he supposed to put his foot on it? THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.