A New Scheme.
So the repairs to the City Hall are to be made by the jobbing system. The contract system, money-making as it is, is too liable to be exposed to the inspection and judgment of the people, but a large job that is split up into a dozen or more little ones and given out to as many individuals, pays better, and can be more secretly conducted; therefore this job which might be done reasonably low by a contractor, is to be highly jobbed out piecemeal. Verily, we live in a great age, have great city fathers, an illustrious Mayor and plenty of paint and putty.
Puttyman turned Merriman.
The anecdotes of great man are the treasures of local history, and are generally presumed to lend some light upon the trivialities of State life. Daniel F. Tiemann is reported to have remarked, in a serious manner it must be observed, for Daniel is thought to be a teetotaller, and rarely dons the motley, that when the Lord Mayor of London hears of our celebration and burning of the City Hall, he would return the compliment by setting fire to the Mansion House. There can be no doubt that this charitable ebullition of ettiquette will be accomplished, and were it not for the extreme modesty of the worshipful Tiemann, there is little doubt but that his Lordship would be induced to re-enact the part of Guy Fawkes, and throw in the two houses of Parliament by way of a superior pyrotechnical display. The thanks of the British public are unquestionably due Puttyman for his moderation, for were he to will it, the Atlantic Cable might require the immolation of Gog and Magog, and, peradventure, the importation of the Bow Bells. But Puttyman says he was only joking, and in alluding to the Metropolitan edifice, intended merely to call forth a sally of wit instead of a blaze of pure genuine flame.
The first appearance of Mr. Puttyman in his new character of Merriman, is highly creditable to a new beginner, and we have little doubt that after a suitable intellectual training by Mr. Gossin, and a few stray tricks from Signor Carlo, he will be able to perform a creditable engagement with Dan Rice. Indeed, we do not know but with the aid of lamp-black and a dictionary, he might be converted into an excellent Brother Bones, if not a joker in all the spirit of Tom Brown, and the quaintness of the late inveterate Horn. When other occupations are gone. Mr. Puttyman, from this specimen of jocularity, is entitled to a front seat in the saw dust.
Eureka.—There having been great inquiry made as to whom the statue in the City Hall Park represents, we are happy to inform the inquisitive that we learn by a dispatch sent us by the Atlantic Telegraph, that it is the fac simile of the great Puttyman.
A Greater Union than the Telegraph.—The political junction between Peter Cooper and Tiemann. The cable can’t stand comparison with the cement of putty and glue.
How to Shed a Ray of Light.
At the Cable demonstration on the 1st, Aldermanic politeness showed itself in its true colors by the virtual expulsion of reporters from the Crystal Palace. Immediately previously to the commencement of the exercises, Mr. Lowber, a protege of the reformer’s, whose name may be remembered in connection with a claim against the city, ordered the removal of the tables and benches allowed to the press. Alderman Thomas McSpedon, whose name will become famous to the press before the whole of the documents in the Hall of Records are printed, forthwith directed the removal of the pressgang, which, like the Joseph Walker, was held by Mr. Lowber to be a nuisance. This summary proceeding was characteristic of aldermanic wisdom, by forgetting that while the wide world was interested in the cable, our astute gentleman imagined that he had it safely coiled in his breeches pocket. Luckily all the addresses, which had the sanction of the Common Council, were in print for a few days before their delivery, and that portion of our municipal greatness has escaped certain loss. Unfortunately there are two sides to a question as well as an address, and as the British recipients of the addresses, as well as the Captain of the Niagara, were not up to the mysteries of the Tea-Room, their replies are forever lost. We have doubtless lost the wheat and secured the chaff.
Strange, if True.—We read in the Herald the other day, that, in the opinion of that oracle, the successful laying of the Trans-atlantic Cable would change the whole moral aspect of human affairs—the Herald included. Now we must confess we do belong to that class of persons which believe that physical agency and morals are intimately allied, and that the great achievement of submerging the cable will produce more or less a moral effect. Still we are doubtful of the Herald. We are equally doubtful whether the successful laying of two cables and a half dozen other scientific victories much greater than anything that has yet transpired, could produce an improvement in the moral character of the Herald. Bennett is too great and too hardened a sinner. Still we have heard of repentance at the eleventh hour.