RUPERTINO’S PANORAMA.

OUR first view is leaving New York harbor. This is a beautiful picture. See the mighty vessel, spreading her snowy wings to the gale, glide through the water like a thing of life. There is nothing to hinder her, and nothing in that fact to make a fuss about. But if the water was to glide through her, it would be time for reflection on the brevity of one’s life insurance policy. The noble ship is freighted with precious human souls, bright hopes, happy anticipations, hides, salt meat and highwines.

This is a view of the Bourse in Paris, a twin institution to the Burlington Board of Trade. The man in the background, trying to hang himself on a lamp-post, is a member of the Bourse. He has just been Boursted. He has been operating in corn. If you will hold a bottle or small tumbler to your mouth and look steadily at this picture, you will see how they usually operate in corn at the Exchanges.

This is a view in Egypt. The great city of Cairo. It is named after Cairo, Illinois. Cairo is on the river Nile. Cairo never struck ile that we know of, but we do know that Cairo seen Nile. We do not know, history does not tell us, what there was so important in this event, but we know it is commemorated by monuments erected all over America. You can’t go into a cemetery in the United States without seeing one or more monuments erected to the memory of Cairo C. Nile. He was probably the inventor of a cooking-stove, as some reference is usually made to the kitchen fire.

This is a view of the Seine. This is the favorite place for the Parisians to shuffle off their mortal coil. The volatile Frenchman gets himself full of elan (you know what that is) and jumps off one of these arched bridges, the Pont Noof or the Pont de Jena, down by the Shong de Mar. The zhong darmay, which is French for river police, fishes the victim out; the coroner pronounces him incurably inseine, his property is confiscated, and his insurance policy declared void, so as to spoil his wife’s chances of marrying again. Such is the grasp of an iron despotism upon the wretched slaves of down-trodden Europe. (Applause)

Here is a view in London of the old Bucking’em palace. This is an exterior view. Inside there are several keno banks, some chuckaluck tables and a faro bank, and the nobility are in there bucking the tiger. King Richard came out of that palace once, cleaned out, after a run of bad luck. He remarked to a friend, “So much for bucking ’em.” The quotation has passed into history.

A panoramic view of Scotland. The gentleman in the peculiar position in the foreground is scratching his back against a mile post and remarking, “God bless the gude Duke of Argyle.” The children in Scotland are taught that the Duke of Argyle made the world. This is an error.

We stand among the antiquities of Rome—Rome that stood on her seven hills, like James Robinson in his famous eight-horse bareback act. This is Trajan’s Column—his spinal column. This is the Arch of Titus. When he put up that arch he was Titus a brick. This is the place where the Roman mobs used to collect and the police went Forum. Here is the Coliseum. There is the bloody sand of the arena; there is the spot where “the dying gladiator” lied. “I see before me the dying gladiator lie.” Some calm and temperate Roman ought to have cast the scoundrel’s lies in his teeth. The Romans were very depraved, wicked people, and the entire civilized world yet suffers from the effects of their malicious iniquity. They invented the Latin grammar, Nepos, Cicero and Virgil, and hurled upon the boys of succeeding ages a language containing ten rules to every word, and twenty exceptions to every rule. This is a statue of a noble Roman, Julius Cæsar. He was named after the Fourth of July and President Grant.

We stand in Greece. “The isles of Greece! The isles of Greece!” Probably the poet referred to goose grease. The Greeks were an ancient people. They wrote their letters in cipher, and schoolboys of to-day sigh for hours over their letters. Here are the ruins of the temple of Jupiter O’Lympus, erected to him by the ancient Greeks, thus proving that the Irish nation sprang from these ancient heroes. Here is an ancient theater. It is closed now for repairs; has been closed for a few thousand years, and the actors have gone off to their Summer resort, at Hades on the Styx.

Behold buried Pompeii. The city was entombed in an eruption that hadn’t been equaled since Job got well. The gentleman in a military position at the gate, dressed in a full suit of bones, is not only a charming specimen of anatomy, but was a brave sentinel, who was covered up with ashes before he could run. He would have been 1,795 years old to-morrow if he had run and kept on living. It appears, however, that he is dead. The fact is not substantiated by any direct evidence, as no witnesses can be found who saw him die, and his will, therefore, has not been probated. But it is generally believed that he is dead. Weep not for him, friends. He was a heathen, and has gone to a place where he is probably used to volcanoes by this time.

This building, the venerable pile that rises before you, is 27,000 years old. It originally cost $850, and took ten men nearly all Summer to build it. It was whitewashed nearly 4,000 years ago, but received no later repairs. The room on the right as you enter the hall on the first floor, is the Torture Room. It is called the County Treasurer’s office, and is where people go and mortgage their farms and homes for taxes. The room opposite is the County Insane Asylum. The juries are confined there while on duty, and the local debating societies also meet there. This court-house was built many ages before Burlington was settled. The massive walls are engraved with the names of eminent men who have served on the juries. A grim and imposing antiquity frowns upon us as we enter the Judgment Hall up stairs. The benches and desks are made of wood taken from the decks of the ark. The tobacco quids in the corners were piled there so long ago that people had not begun to remember anything. The wood-box is a pre-Adamic creation. It is modeled after the megatherium. The only man living who knows any thing about the early history of the court-house is dead.