PUNCHINELLO is forced to admit, with due humility, his unfitness to embellish his letters with the gorgeous and pyrotechnic lavishness of "fancy writing" which graces the letters of the New York Correspondents, but he is sure that the items which follow are infinitely more truthful than are the most of the statements furnished by those highly erudite and ornamental gentlemen. And in infusing such an element of comparative truthfulness into the current statements about New York city, PUNCHINELLO experiences the proud satisfaction of having done his duty.
_Items_.--The recent unpleasantness between HUGH HASTINGS and THEODORE TILTON has culminated in a duel with howitzers, in which the former had his head carried away, and the latter had both legs shot off.
The fact has leaked out, that the recently reported BEETHOVEN Centennial Jubilee was a myth. There is no such building in New York as was described, and no concerts have taken place. The reports in the local papers were written by unscrupulous Bohemians in the pay of the musicians whom they puffed.
The New York police are notoriously inefficient. They are generally to be found lying drunk across the sidewalk, and 623 carriages are sent around every evening to gather them up.
HORACE GREELEY has joined the Red Stocking Base Ball Nine.
I am a musician. I constitute one twenty-fourth of the orchestra at BOOTH'S. I nightly blow the drum. Thus much by way of introduction to the dear public, whose devoted servant I am, preliminary to a recital of my woes. Whoever has been inside the theatre named has probably noticed the peculiar construction, or rather location, of the enclosure wherein we manipulators of melody are penned up. I know not what cause or provocation the architect of BOOTH'S Theatre may have had, but certain it is that he entertains a horrible spite against musicians. He may have been distracted by diabolical hand-organs, or driven wild by bungling buglists, but why should he include worthy and unoffending artists in his hatred? The revenge of a BORGIA was not more terrible or cruel than that of this architect. He has put the orchestra so far below the stage that no part of the latter is visible to the poor musicians.