_Farmer. (Popping up his head_.) "GIT EOWT O' MY MEADOW, YEOU TWO--WILL
YEOU?"]

* * * * *

OUR CORRESPONDENCE BUREAU.

As everybody knows, PUNCHINELLO absolutely beams with benevolence toward
the human race, and a further proof of his disinterested and
self-sacrificing generosity is about to be displayed. PUNCHINELLO has
been pained to notice the wretched material with which, for want of a
well-posted New York correspondent, the country editor of the period
(amusing _sui generis_) is forced to fill his scanty columns under the
much-displayed caption, "Our New York Letter.--From Our Own
Correspondent." To obviate this difficulty, the following interesting
and important items of New York news, which are believed to have never
before been published, are gratuitously furnished, and the copyright
which applies to the rest of the paper is generously taken off from this
particular column.

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.