The famous _mitrailleur_, or grape-thrower, with which LOUIS NAPOLEON has already commenced to astonish the Prussians, suggests congenial work for the numerous performers on the barrel-organ with which our large cities are at all times infested. It is worked with a crank, exactly after the manner of the too-familiar street instrument; and might easily be fitted with a musical cylinder arranged for the performance of the most inspiriting and patriotic French airs. Should Italy, at present neutral, take side with France hereafter, she should at once withdraw her wandering minstrels from all parts of the world, and set them to work on the "double attachment" engine of L.N. Nothing could be more appropriate for working the _mitrailleur_ than a corps of barrel-organ grinders from the land of the Grape.
MR. PUNCHINELLO: Though aware that you "belong to Company G," and must not be bothered, I wish to ask whether you are descended from the famous chicken-dealer of Sorrento, who sold fowls in Naples, and was well-known in that fun-loving city for the humor of his speech and the oddity of his form. He was called "PULCINELLA," I believe, the name being the same as that of his wares.
If not to this celebrated wag, perhaps you trace your origin to Mr. PUCCIO D'ANELLO, who so delighted a company of actors at Aceria, with his jokes and gibes, that they invited him to join them, and soon discovered that they had found a Star.
If neither of these classical wags was your ancestor, may I ask, who the deuce _did_ you come from? Yours, truly,
We see that they have been "firing cannon in the fields near Paris, to bring on a rain." If there is any virtue in this recipe, they are likely to get some moist weather to the north-eastward of Paris, to say the least. The firing in that quarter may even lead to a Reign in Paris such as France has not lately seen. We would not go so far as to _predict_ anything of this sort. Oh, no; for we are aware that the moment we should do so, NAPOLEON would lick the Prussians on purpose to show the world that we didn't hit it that time.
When one wants to see the great people who are to be seen nowhere else, one goes to the celebrated White Sulphur Springs of Virginia; and, very correctly supposing that there might be persons there who would like to see him, Mr. PUNCHINELLO took a trip to the aforesaid springs. He found it charming there. There was such a chance to study character. From the parlors where Chief-Justice CHASE and General LEE were hob-nobbing over apple-toddies and "peach-and-honey," to the cabins where the wards of the nation were luxuriating in picturesque ease beneath the shade of their newly-fledged angel of liberty, everything was instructive to the well-balanced mind.