Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 33, November 12, 1870

Excerpt

GREAT MEN OF AMERICA.

By MOSE SKINNER

DANIEL WEBSTER

Was the sort of a man you don't find laying round loose nowadays to any great extent. It's a pity his brains wasn't preserved in a glass case, where the imbecile lunatics at Washington could take a whiff occasionally. It would do 'em good.

We are told that as a boy DANIEL was stupid, but this has been said of so many great men that it's getting stale. Some talented men were undoubtedly stupid boys, but it doesn't follow that every idiotic youth will make an eminent statesman. But there are plenty of vacancies in the statesman business. A great many men go into it, but they fail for want of capital. If they would only stick to their legitimate business of clam-digging, or something of that sort, we should appreciate them, and their obituary notice would be a thing to love, because 'twould be short.

But D. WEBSTER wasn't one of this sort. He didn't force Nature. He forgot enough every day to set five modern politicians up for life. When he opened his mouth to speak, it didn't act upon the audience like chloroform, nor did the senate-chamber look five minutes after like a receiving tomb, with the bodies laying round promiscuously. I should say not. He could wade right into the middle of a dictionary and drag out some ideas that were wholesome. Yes, when DANIEL in that senatorial den did get his back up, the political lions just stood back and growled.

Take him altogether he was our biggest gun, and it's a pity he went off as he did, for he was the Great Expounder of the Constitution.

HON. JOHN MORRISSEY

Is also a Great Ex-pounder. Even greater than WEBSTER, for the constitution of the United States is a trifling affair, compared with the constitution of J.C. HEENAN.

Mr. MORRISSEY is a very able man and made his mark early in life. Before he could write his name, I'm told. No man has made more brilliant hits, and his speeches are concise and full of originality. "I'll take mine straight." "No sugar for me," &c., have become as household words.

A man like this, though he may be vilified and slandered for awhile, will eventually come in on the home stretch with a right bower to spare.

That's a nice place JOHN has got at Saratoga. Fitted up so elegantly, and with so much money in it, it looks like a Fairy bank with the fairies gambolling upon the green. It's all very pretty, no doubt, but excuse me if I pass.

GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN.

This gentleman is yet destined to send a thrill of joy to our hearts, and flood our souls with a calm and tranquil joy. This will come off when his funeral takes place. He wasn't born like other people. He was made to order for the position of common scold in a country sewing-circle.

But he wasn't satisfied. He wanted to be an Eminent Lunatic and found private mad-houses. And so he began to lecture. He used to rehearse in a graveyard, and it was a common thing for a newly-buried corpse to organize a private resurrection and make for the woods, howling dismally.

A village out West was singularly unfortunate last summer....