to ask such questions _out
loud_; it's not _decent_. And _fine answering_ an't much better.
Financiering, is it? Ah! well. _Specious assumption_, too; but that
requires brass, and I want _gold_. Meantime, who's got a twenty-five
cent note?"

* * * * *

Massachusetts Flats.

Massachusetts must abound in Flats. Its Legislature is annually agitated
from the sands of Cape Cod to the hills of Berkshire over the question.
It is said to be wisdom to set a rogue to catch a rogue. Is it equally
so to set a flat to catch one?

* * * * *

NATIONAL TAXIDERMY.

[Illustration 'P']

PUNCHINELLO has for some time past carefully considered the subject of
our national tariff of imposts, (_that is to say, he happened to see, in
a Tribune, the other day, that lucifer matches were now to be stamped
separately, and not by the box, as heretofore_) and he has come to the
conclusion, after duly weighing in his mind all the arguments for and
against the present system of taxation, (_that is to say, he made up his
mind the minute he read the article_,) that what the present tariff
needs, is a more thorough application and a better classification; or,
what the technologists call Taxonomy, which term is suggested to him by
a work on the subject which he has been recently studying. (_That is to
say, he looked in the dictionary to find out what Taxidermy meant, and
seeing Taxonomy there, snapped it up for a sort of collateral pun_.) As
an illustration of what our impost legislators (or imposters) ought to
be, let us take the Taxidermist. He is one who takes from an animal
every thing but his skin and bones, and stuffs him up afterward with all
sorts of nonsense. Now, our National Taxidermists ought to take a lesson
from their original. Many of the good people of the United States have
much more left them than their skin and bones. Why is not all that
taken? The condition of the ordinary stuffed animal of the shops is
strikingly significant of what should be expected of loyal communities.
(_That is to say, communities which vote a certain ticket which need not
be named here_.) It is often said that there are things which flesh and
blood will not bear. Now, a thorough system of Taxidermy remedies all
this. A stuffed 'possum, for instance, having no flesh or blood, will
bear any thing. When the people of this country are thoroughly cleaned
out, they will be just as docile. Among the