~JUMBLES~
PUNCHINELLO has heard, of course, of the good time coming. It has not come yet. It won't come till the stars sing together in the morning, after going home, like festive young men, early. It won't come till Chicago has got its growth in population, morals and ministers. It won't come till the women are all angels, and men are all honest and wise; not until politicians and retailers learn to tell the truth. You may think the Millennium a long way off. Perhaps so. But mighty revolutions are sometimes wrought in a mighty fast time. Many a fast man has been known to turn over a new leaf in a single night, and forever afterwards be slow. Such a thing is dreadful to contemplate, but it has been. Many a vain woman has seen the folly of her ways at a glance, and at once gone back on them. This is not dreadful to contemplate, since to go back on folly is to go onward in wisdom. The female sex is not often guilty of this eccentricity, but instances have been known. It is that which fills the proud bosom of man with hope and consolation, and makes him feel really that woman is coming; which is all the more evident since she began her "movement." The good time coming is nowhere definitely named in the almanacs. The goings and comings of the heavenly bodies, from the humble star to the huge planet, are calculated with the facility of the cut of the newest fashion; and the revolutions of dynasties can be fixed upon with tolerable certainty; but the period of the good time coming is lost in the mists of doubt and the vapors of uncertainty. It is very sure in expectancy, like the making of matrimonial matches. Everybody is looking for it, but nobody sees it. The sharpest of eyes only discern the bluest and gloomiest objects. But PUNCHINELLO may reasonably expect to see, feel and know, this good time. The coming will yet be to it the time come. Perhaps it will be when it visits two hundred thousand readers weekly, when mothers sigh, children cry, and fathers well-nigh die for it. At all events, somewhen or other—it may be the former period, but possibly the latter—the good time will come. And great will be the coming thereof, with no discount to the biggest or richest man out.
What a luxury is Hope! It springs eternal in the human breast. Rather an awkward place for a spring, but as poets know more than other people, no doubt it is all right. Hope is an institution. What is the White House, or the Capitol at Washington, to Hope? What is the Central Park, or Boston Common, or the Big Organ, to Hope? Not much—not anything, like the man's religion, to speak of. Hope bears up many a man, though it pays no bills to the grocer, milliner, tailor, or market man. It is the vertebra which steadies him plumb up to a positive perpendicular. A hopeless man or woman—how fearful! They very soon become round-shouldered, limp and weak, and drink little but unsizable sighs, and feed on all manner of dark and unhealthy things. It is TODD'S deliberate opinion that if a cent can't be laid up, Hope should. Hope with empty pockets is rich compared to wealth with "nary a" hope. Hope is a good thing to have about the house. It always comes handy, and is acceptable even to company. So believes, and he acts on the faith, does
TIMOTHY TODD.
~Capitol Punishment.~
Abolition of the franking privilege.