not a natural production; it was invented about the time taxes were, though it must be admitted that those very annoying articles appeared very early in the history of the human race. I've no doubt that ADAM levied taxes, though it's very doubtful if he could put as many things in a tax levy as a New York politician can. Certainly there was a very high tariff on apples in his day—so high that humanity has not yet succeeded in paying off the duty on the one ADAM ate. ABRAHAM paid taxes, and, as he was his own Senate and House, doubtless he passed a tariff bill to suit himself, and had any quantity of Protection. I have always regretted that NOAH didn't pass a bill protecting native industry, because he could have enforced it, and had no wrangling about it.

There are one or two points about Protection which a wayfaring man, even if people labor under the impression that he is a fool, can understand. If you are JOHN SMITH and own a coal mine or an iron mill, you go to Washington, see your Congressman, (by see I mean look at him, of course,) donate large sums of money to certain poor, but honest men, who adorn the lobby of the House, while they are waiting for generous patrons like unto you, then go home and calmly await the result. Your representative makes a speech, the exordium of which is Patriotism, the peroration of which is Star-Spangled Banner, and the central plum of which is your coal mine or iron mill. Your poor and honest friends wear out several pairs of shoes, the tariff bill is passed, your mine or mill is abundantly protected, and the country is saved. If, on the other hand, you are JOHN BROWN, and raise cabbages and turnips on a farm, you are allowed to pay high prices for SMITH'S coal or iron, but you expect no Protection, and you've a sure thing of getting what you expect.

Of course you don't imagine that I shall explain the details of this profound subject. There are only two men in this country who think they can do that, and each one of those says that the other is an idiot. As a rule, figures can't lie; but look out for the exceptions when you run across the subject of Protection. The very same figures have an ugly way of proving both sides of a question. You run down a fact, and think you've got it, but, before you know it, it has slipped, like the "little joker," over to the other side.

Personally, I am a Protectionist. Formerly I indulged in that monstrous absurdity, Free Trade, but then I was an importer; now, being a manufacturer, the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I am of the straitest sect a Protectionist. You can't give me too much of it. Of course I can't see why pig-iron should be protected, and pigs not. I think every native production should be cared for, and that there should be an excessively high tariff on foreign food. In that case poor REVERDY JOHNSON would have been compelled to have passed a Lenten season at Halifax, until he had eradicated from his system the rich English dinners, before he could have entered this favored land. And MOTLEY—bless me, he has eaten so much that I don't believe he could get it out of his body if he fasted for the remainder of his natural life.

I am informed, however, that Protection does us one injury. All the World says that there is a Parsee in our land, who is loaded with rupees, but who is unable to spend them here because of our protective system, and what all the World says, you know, must be true. However, there are 40,000,000 of us, and, if Congress will make all Americans buy my patent door-knobs, the Parsee can go to—Hindostan.

I don't think any thing more can be said about Protection. Any body who doesn't understand it now had better go to Washington, and listen to the debate on scrap-iron. That will sharpen his wits. Pig-iron, of course, is interesting, but then that's a light and airy subject. Hear the debate on scrap-iron, by all means.

LOT.

A LITERARY VAMPIRE.

No greater mistake was ever made than the supposition that PUNCHINELLO is to be assailed with impunity by rival publications. It is well known that he never courted controversies or quarrels, and his best friends understand perfectly his love for a peaceable career. But when that flippant sheet, known as Rees's American Encyclopedia, comes out with a violent attack upon PUNCHINELLO'S past life and present course, the assault is such as would provoke a retort from any honest man. The vile insinuation that PUNCHINELLO is printed and published for the sole purpose of making money out of its subscribers and the reading public in general, is too mendacious for refutation; and when the reckless editor of the periodical in question gravely announces that he can never read PUNCHINELLO without laughing at its contents, it will be readily seen that he goes so far as to make use of the truth to serve his wicked purposes. But the descent which this shameless conductor of a journal, confessedly the organ of our ignorant masses, has made into the private life of PUNCHINELLO, is without precedent. He states that for the first fourteen years of his life, PUNCHINELLO was, to all intents and purposes, a person of little or no fortune, and that he depended entirely upon his parents for support; that, until he had reached his fifth birthday, he had absolutely no knowledge of English literature, and was entirely ignorant of even the rudiments of the classics; that he never paid one cent of income tax at that period of his life; and that his belief in the fundamental principles of political economy was, at that time, doubted by all who knew him best! Are such statements as these to be submitted to by a man of honor? Never! PUNCHINELLO dares the recreant editor of the dirty sheet to do his worst! Of that base man he could tell much which would render him unfit for the association of any person living, but he forbears. This much, however, he will say. It is well known that the said calumniator did, at many periods of his life, make use of the services of a calceolarius. Think of that, freemen of America! He has often been known to submit to indignities, such as nose-pulling from the hands of a common tonsor, and has been frequently in such a condition that he could not appear in public without the assistance of a sartor! Is it fitting that a high-toned journalist should engage in petty recriminations with such a one? "Revenge," says JAMES MURDOCK, "is the sweetest morsel cooked in its own gravy, with sauce moyennaise." "Yes," said Dean SWIFT, "and let us have some, and a little gin, say five fingers, and a trifle of milk." Thus it is that we regard the editor of the Encyclopedia.

CARLYLE remarks, "Many a vessel, (for if not a Vessel, then surely we, or our progenitors, in counting ships, and the assumptive floatative mechanisms of anterior and past ages; or as the Assyrians [under-estimating the force of the correlative elements] declared a bridging, or a going over [not of seas merely, but of those chaotic gaps of the mind] are all wrong enough indeed,) has never got there."

We also think of that editor in this way, and trust that enough has been said to make it plain that PUNCHINELLO is not to be attacked with impunity by every little journal of the day.

Encouraging for Travellers.

The managers of a leading railroad announce that they take passengers "to all principal points of the West without change." Such unusual liberality, at a time when Change is so scarce with many people, ought to insure for that railroad a great success.

Alike, but Different.

Poetry sometimes has a Ring in it. So has a pig's nose.

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

ilitary dramas might, as a rule, be called with equal propriety millinery dramas. In other words, their success is generally due to their costumes. In this respect they afford a marked contrast to ballet spectacles. The latter give us inanity without clothes; the former, inanity in particularly gorgeous clothes. Which, again, leads to the further remark that the difference between the two styles of inanity is, after all, a clothes thing. This is a joke.

The Lancers, now running at WALLACK'S, (a proceeding which implies no want of bravery on the part of that distinguished corps,) is, however, unlike most military dramas, inasmuch as it is a bright and brilliant play. Moreover, it is acted by the best members of the Company in their very best manner. Miss LOUISA MOORE, whose golden hair and silvery voice become an actress of genuine mettle as well as gentle grace, is ESTELLE, the heroine; Miss EMILY MESTAYER is the Commanding Sister of Col. EPÉE who is personated by Mr. FISHER; Mr. WYNDHAM is the Graceless Private, who, having spent his last penny, enlists in the Lancers and spends vast sums in beneficiary beer in company with his comrades; Mr. WILLIAMSON is the Kindly Sergeant; Mr. RINGGOLD is the Genial Artist, whose velvet coat suggests that he has recently managed a Starr opera bouffe enterprise; and Mr. STODDART is happy in the congenial character of a Clumsy Trumpeter. If any speculative manager pretends that he has a better hypothetical cast in his eye than the present cast of the Lancers, let him be given to the surgical tormentors to be operated upon for malignant strabismus.

The curtain rises upon the Genial Artist searching for his friend, the Graceless Private, in the empty jugs and glasses at the Golden Sun Inn. To him enters the Clumsy Trumpeter.

Genial Artist. "Where can he be? It—it must, and yet—"

Clumsy Trumpeter (without Stoddart's usual oath.) "He's got 'em. Hallo! friend. Do you want any thing?"

Genial Artist. "Yes—no—that is—or rather it isn't—" (Exit, while Trumpeter makes faces at the gallery.)

Enter ESTELLE and her maid, disguised as peasants, and pursued by a troop of lancers.

All the Lancers. "Let me kiss 'em."

Both the Girls. "Scr-r-r-r-e-e-e-ch."

(Enter Graceless Private.)

Graceless Private. "I will protect you. Get out, all you fellows." (They get out.)

A flirtation between the Private and ESTELLE is at once begun, from which it appears that she came to catch a glimpse of the Colonel, who wants to marry her. She and the Private sit on the table, and fall instantaneously in love. As soon as they are well in, the Lancers return, and ESTELLE flies. Graceless Private, having no money, pays for the co-inebriation of the entire corps, and while engaged in this praiseworthy occupation is found by the Genial Artist, who makes him promise to attend a ball at a neighboring château. Enter Kindly Sergeant, who arrests the Graceless Private, and puts him in the guard-house. Curtain falls amid faces from STODDART (without his usual oath) and applause from the audience.

Veteran Play-goer. "Well, I've seen STODDART in every thing he has played this year, and this is the first time he has failed to swear on every ineligible occasion."

Young Lady who frequents Wallack's. "Who is that Clumsy Trumpeter? I don't know him."

Accompanying Young Man. "Why, don't you know STODDART?"

Young Lady. "Nonsense; that isn't STODDART. Why, he hasn't sworn once."

Fast Young Man. "STODDART isn't himself to-night. He hasn't the spirit to swear. Did you hear the good thing he said Monday night about Miss MOORE? It was devilish good. Says he—" (Repeats an indelicate joke.)

Irate Old Gentleman who overhears the story. "If he said that, sir, he ought to have been hissed off the stage, sir; and turned out of the company, sir! It was an insult to an estimable lady, and an outrage on the audience, sir!"

The second act takes place in the salon of ESTELLE. The Colonel and his Commanding Sister lay siege to ESTELLE'S heart. Graceless Private, in evening dress, countermines the Colonel's forces and routs them, wading deeper than before in the exhilarating surf of love, hand in hand with ESTELLE. (This metaphor has been leased for a term of years to a distinguished hydropathic poet.) Clumsy Trumpeter drops books and things all over the room, and recognises the Graceless Private. Finally the Colonel and the latter quarrel, and go out in the back yard to fight, where the Private is wounded in the arm. The Colonel returns and announces the result to ESTELLE, who swoons, or at all events, makes an admirable feint of so doing. Curtain.

Fast Young Man. "STODDART didn't try his good joke to-night. He'll say something yet, though, before the play is over."

Every body Else. "Did you ever see better acting than WYNDHAM'S and Miss MOORE'S? And how capitally FISHER and Miss MESTAYER are playing? STODDART positively hasn't sworn yet. What can be the matter with him?"

Inquiring Maiden, to her travelled lover. "Are the uniforms just like those of the real French Lancers?"

Travelled Lover. "Very nearly. There is one button too many on the front of the Colonel's coat. I know the regiment well. It's the crack artillery regiment in the French service."

Act III. shows us the Graceless Private brought before the Colonel for examination. He feigns drunkenness, but the Colonel suspects him of having been his adversary at the ball. ESTELLE visits the Colonel in order to save her Private lover. He is proved to have broken his arrest, and is sentenced to death. ESTELLE offers to marry the Colonel if he will pardon the Private. The latter's discharge arrives in the nick of time, and as he is thus beyond the reach of the Colonel's vengeance, he graciously pardons him, and joins his hand to that of ESTELLE. He remarks—or ought to—"Bless you, my children." Every body suddenly finds out that every body else is noble and generous. And so the curtain falls upon a happy garrison, including a Trumpeter who has not sworn a single oath.

One Half of the Audience. "How do you like it? I like it so much."

The Other Half. "I like it immensely."

Chorus from Every body. "Why didn't STODDART swear?"

Answering Echo from the Tipperary Hills. "Because WALLACK has told him that the public won't stand it any longer."

And the public is right. Mr. STODDART is an exceptionally able actor, but of late he has grown intolerably coarse and vulgar while on the stage. His profanity has disgraced himself and the theatre, and his gratuitous insult to an estimable lady, who had the misfortune to appear in the same scene with him on Monday night, should have secured his instant dismissal from the company, and his perpetual banishment to Tammany or Tony Pastor's. Let him turn over a new leaf at once. He does not swear in the present play, and the fact is creditable to him. He is a gentleman in private life; let him be a gentleman on the stage. By so doing he will soon be recognized as one of the best comedians of the day. And PUNCHINELLO will be the first to praise him when he lays aside the unnecessary vulgarity with which he has latterly bid for the applause of the gallery.

MATADOR.

THE RELIGION OF TEMPERANCE.

Says Poet to Parson—To save men from drinking,
Not many religions are good to my thinking;
To be sure a good Baptist a man of true grace is,
But a Hard Shell, my brother's the hardest of cases.
Your Shouter's too noisy for temperance talking,
Your Come-outer too harsh for right temperate walking.
A Quaker's not steady enough on his beam-ends,
And a Shaker