Puck mocks the spectrum of absurd and at times radical special interest groups who hoped to influence the forthcoming election of 1888. In the magazine's estimation, they were no better than the machine politicians and spoilsmen that exercised so much power over the two major parties.
from Grand Presidential Auction Sale, by C. J. Taylor. Included In Mirrors of the Gilded Age: Political Cartoons as Primary Sources and Text (Critical Documentary Essay), by Samuel J. Thomas.
Diary of Henry DeForrest, on a whaling voyage from 3 January 1852 to 15 March 1853, while Second Officer (later First Officer) on board the William Rotch of Fairhaven, Massachusetts (Cromwell Morslander, Captain). A detailed, clearly written, and introspective account of a whaling mate’s life, by an experienced and articulate seaman who had rounded Cape Horn five times before this voyage, and passed eleven birthdays “in the whaling service.”
DeForrest records incidents, landmarks, and ports of call (including Pernambuco, the Falkland Islands, Cape Horn, islands and cities of the coast of Chile and Peru, and the Galapagos Islands), and notes with varying stamps or sketches the ships spoken and some 120 whales struck — whether “saved” or lost — and the quantity of oil rendered. For the ships, he records the name, length of time at sea, and frequently the number of barrels stowed. He sailed with a chest of books, quotes Spenser on the first of May, reports on his reading, and how “the reading part of the crew” will exchange books when they speak other whalers. “The man has become all ‘romantical’ as my boatsteerer calls it, and it is all owing to these ‘Novellettes’ of which the ship is full” (6 October 1852).
While De Forrest persuades the captain to read the occasional book, Morslander’s attitude to reading is contemptuous: “The Captain sets here damning books and reading, I understand him perfectly, but care as much as I would for any old dog barking” (11 January 1853). Not three weeks later, however, he writes, “The old man has taken to reading, he is now perusing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he says he likes it because it is a nigger yarn” (6 February 1853). As Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published after the William Rotch sailed, DeForrest can only have obtained it during one of these exchanges of books. from: Nicholson Whaling Collection, Providence Public Library
CREATED/PUBLISHED
[New York] J. Bien, lith., 1874.
NOTES
Copy 3 has variant title on plate XVIIa.
Preface and introduction, by the compiler.--Index to maps and charts.--The physical features of the United States, by Prof. J. D. Whitney.--The woodlands and forest systems of the United States, by Prof. William H. Brewer.--Geological map of the United States and territories, by Chas. H. Hitchcock and Wm. P. Blake.--The gold and silver mines of the West, by Prof. Rossiter W. Raymond, U. S. commissioner of mining statistics.--The coal measures of the United States, by Prof. C. H. Hitchcock.--Areas and political divisions of the United States, 1776-1874, by S. W. Stocking, United States Patent office.--The minor political divisions of the United States, by S. A. Galpin.--The progress of the nation--1790-1870, by the compiler of the atlas.--An approximate life-table for the United States on the basis of the ninth census, 1870, by E. B. Elliott, U. S. Bureau of statistics.--The relations of race and nationality to mortality in the United States, by the compiler of the atlas.
