In the foreground is seen a wretched widower, clasping with affection an urn, supposed to contain the ashes of his dear departed, who was slain at the polls.
QUERY.
MR. PUNCHINELLO: On very high authority, (that of the Emperor of France and the King of Prussia,) Providence is on the side of both parties in the present contest. As this is uniformly the case, according to the affirmations of both parties in the war, are we to infer that killing is a laudable pursuit, and that it is only in cases where one side happens to have "heavier artillery" than the other, that Providence actually chooses sides?
Two things I know--the weather is uncommonly warm, and this is an uncommonly tough question; so you may answer at your leisure (indeed, I suppose you would do that any way,)--or not at all: which, I observe, you sometimes do, when the question before you is a little too tough.
PARADOX.
OUR POPULARITY.
It is gratifying to know that PUNCHINELLO is fast becoming an object of interest to all intelligent citizens of this enlightened country. The recent large additions to our subscription list prove how highly we are appreciated. Would it be considered unreasonable of us, however, to ask that something less than twenty per cent, of our new subscriptions should be spared to us by certain parties not wholly unconnected with country post-offices? Not long since, of forty-two subscriptions received from Whitehall, N.Y., in one week, nine copies of PUNCHINELLO No. 16 mysteriously disappeared between that place and New York city. Had the gentlemen who appropriated these papers, in their enthusiasm for PUNCHINELLO, kindly allowed them to go to their destination, instead, and written to us, pleading their inability to purchase copies of the paper, we might, perhaps, have sent them some in consideration of their indigent circumstances. If the abstraction of the papers was intended as a joke--the point of which we do not see, by the bye--we are willing to overlook the offence "just once." Should it be repeated, however, we shall have some reference to make to the proper quarter that will be pertinent to the subject.