1.39. POPULARITY.
What a queer thing is popularity; Bill Pug Nose of the "Plug-Uglies" (The name given to an infamous gang of ruffians which once had its head-quarters in Baltimore.) acquires a world-wide reputation by smashing up the "champion of light weights," sets up a Saloon upon it, and realizes the first month; while our Missionary, who collected two hundred blankets last August, and at that time saved a like number of little negroes in the West Indies from freezing, has received nothing but the yellow fever. The Hon. Oracular M. Matterson becomes able to withstand any quantity of late nights and bad brandy, is elected to Congress, and lobbies through contracts by which he realizes some 50,000 dollars; while private individuals lose 100,000 dollars by the Atlantic Cable. Contracts are popular— the cable isn't. Fiddlers, Prima Donnas, Horse Operas, learned pigs, and five-legged calves travel through the country, reaping "golden opinions," while editors, inventors, professors, and humanitarians generally, are starving in garrets. Revivals of religion, fashions, summer resorts, and pleasure trips, are exceedingly popular, while trade, commerce, chloride of lime, and all the concomitants necessary to render the inner life of denizens of cities tolerable, are decidedly non est. Even water, which was so popular and populous a few weeks agone, comes to us in such stinted sprinklings that it has become popular to supply it only from hydrants in sufficient quantities to raise one hundred disgusting smells in a distance of two blocks. Monsieur Revierre, with nothing but a small name and a large quantity of hair, makes himself exceedingly popular with hotel-keepers and a numerous progeny of female Flaunts and Blounts, while Felix Smooth and Mr. Chink, who persistently set forth their personal and more substantial marital charms through the columns of "New York Herald," have only received one interview each—one from a man in female attire, and the other from the keeper of an unmentionable house. Popularity is a queer thing, very. If you don't believe us, try it!