Every Boy's Book: A Complete Encyclopaedia of Sports and Amusements Part 119

The puppet-show may be formed in the following simple manner:--Take a tall, three-sided clothes-horse, and place its outer edges against the wall so that it may inclose a square s.p.a.ce; then hang curtains or shawls over the horse, leaving no part uncovered except a rectangular s.p.a.ce close to the floor in front; to this opening you may, if you think proper, fix a painted proscenium. Now place a small towel-horse, hung with black stuff, at the distance of a foot behind the proscenium, to serve as a background to the stage, and to conceal your legs while you are engaged in working the puppets: having done this, lay down a little green-baize carpet on that part of the floor which represents the stage, and your puppet-show will be complete. The puppets may be illuminated by candles placed on the floor in front of the proscenium. The spectators are to be stationed as far from the show as possible, so that they may not perceive the threads.

The performer takes his seat behind the small horse, and holding the stick to which the threads are fastened in his left hand, he manages the motions of the puppet with the fingers of his right hand. When the motions are very complicated, the showman may attach the stick to a string hanging from a rod placed across the top of the show, and employ the fingers of both hands in working the figure. With very little practice the amateur puppet-man may acquire great proficiency in the art of giving lifelike movements to the dolls.

The reader may dress up his puppets in any fancy costumes, but he must endeavour to give to each its appropriate action. The following characters may perhaps be allowed to figure in his Fantoccini:--

THE SAILOR.

This puppet, which is represented in our ill.u.s.tration, is a popular favourite. The doll should have whiskers of Berlin wool glued on its cheeks, and a trim black silk pigtail attached to the back of the head.

It is to be dressed in the conventional naval costume, namely, a blue jacket, loose white trousers, and a straw hat. On its entrance it should be made to bow to the audience in a characteristic manner, by inclining its body and kicking one leg behind it. The _Sailor's Hornpipe_ is then to be struck up by the pianist, and the puppet made to dance to the music. If the showman can manage six strings at once, two threads, not shown in our ill.u.s.tration, may be attached to the knees.

THE JUGGLER

May be dressed in a fanciful Eastern costume; a string is to be attached to the head, and another to each of the hands. A gilded ball, having a hole pierced through it, is strung on each hand-thread, and to each ball a fine silken thread is attached. Our ill.u.s.tration shows how the five threads are to be attached to the supporting-stick. A little practice will enable the showman to work this puppet so dexterously that the spectators will be fairly puzzled to tell how the rapid tossing and catching of the b.a.l.l.s is managed.

THE HEADLESS MAN.

This puppet may be dressed according to the reader's fancy; its head is not fastened to the body, but is strung on a thread attached to the neck. When the showman has made the doll dance for a short time, he pulls the head from the body by means of a thread fastened to it, and makes the headless puppet dance on as if nothing had happened.

THE MILKWOMAN.

A puppet, dressed like a woman with a yoke of milkcans, makes its appearance and performs a country jig. Before the dance is concluded a little white doll jumps out of each can. The milkwoman tries to catch the dolls, but they fly out of sight. The trick is easily managed; to the head of each little doll is fastened a thread, which the showman pulls at the proper time. The yoke may be cut out of a piece of soft deal, and the cans may be made of pasteboard covered with tinfoil.

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POSTAGE STAMP COLLECTING, OR PHILATELY.

Our young readers may vainly turn over the pages of any existing dictionary to find the scientific alias of the heading of this article.

We trust the omission will be soon supplied, _Philately_, or Postage Stamp Collecting, having reached the dignity of a recognised science.

The word is the English rendering of the French term _Philatelie_, bestowed by a distinguished Parisian amateur in subst.i.tution for what was called _timbromania_, the latter portion of which word caused an unpleasant a.s.sociation of ideas, and gave rise to many a sneer from the wiseacres who had not sense enough to understand the real utility of the pastime. It is derived from the Greek f???? and ?t??e?a, the nearest equivalent traceable in cla.s.sical lore to a modern postage stamp.

To schoolboys in general be ascribed the honour of introducing the elegant and instructive fancy forming the subject of our dissertation.

The young students of the college of Louvain in particular claim to have been the earliest collectors: thence the fancy spread over France and Germany, inoculating many an English pupil in continental seminaries, by whom it was transmitted home. Some Louvain scholars informed us last year that it had been long prohibited by the professors, as tending to induce inattention to their regular tasks! We think this a mistaken notion; convinced that a knowledge of geography, history, and the values of foreign coins is materially facilitated by the study of postage stamps; which, moreover, induces neatness, regularity, and a sure refuge from ennui on a rainy day. Before the reign of postage stamps, who ever heard of the obscure city whence emanates that unit of a strange set of five, engraved at page 759, or the equally mysterious Thurn and Taxis?

What can give a better idea of the chances and changes fewer than ten years have produced in the vast tract of land known as the Danubian Princ.i.p.alities, whose stamps are representatives of Moldavia alone, of Moldo-Wallachia united, and of the same countries resuming their ancient denomination of Roumania, first under Prince Couza, now under Prince Charles of Hohenzollern?

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At the head of this paper is a reprint of an engraving taken from an old work on ancient and modern posts, printed at Paris in 1708. It portrays the various methods of transmitting news in use before the present almost universal system. The left-hand tower bears a lighted beacon; on the top of the right and central towers are men supposed to be shouting messages to be pa.s.sed onwards from place to place, in the way some of our young cla.s.sical scholars will remember is mentioned by Caesar, book vii. chapter 3. The carrier pigeon above, and the dog in the foreground, represent other well-known modes. The former was, and still is, common in the East, and by no means disused here in the case of races, prize-fights, &c.; the latter was employed by the Portuguese during their East Indian conquests, and has been used until a late period by the Peruvians and other Americans.

An early antic.i.p.ation of the modern post-paid envelope is still in existence, appropriately addressed to the celebrated auth.o.r.ess of "Cyrus the Great," the originator of ???a?a (_angara_), or posting-stations; but, strange to say, Persia, the earliest postal pioneer, has not yet adopted the stamp system, though essays have been submitted to the State.

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The Californian Pony Expresses, and the earliest emission of Buenos Aires, are exemplars of this primitive way of communication. The last-named stamp has been supposed merely an essay; but we have seen it post-marked. A modification of the same is the Humboldt Express of Langton and Co. and a sort of travestie, the United States local of D.

O. Blood.

Other methods of transmitting correspondence, &c. are typified by the sailing vessels of British Guiana, the steamers on the extinct stamps of Buenos Aires, and the Pacific Steam Navigation Company; those of La Guaira and the Russian for the Levant sea-ports. An American idea, even too go-ahead for the reckless Yankees, for we cannot hear that it was ever put in practice, is also here embodied.

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Nearly two centuries after the plan was broached in Paris appeared the well-known absurd Mulready envelope, an extraordinary evidence of official vagaries, that such an abortion should have received preference over hundreds of essays, of which the cut pictures by no means the best!

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The current envelopes for Great Britain, simple and compound, comprising every value from one penny to one shilling and sixpence, excepting only elevenpence and one shilling and fivepence, are certainly perfection; but are so little known or used that few are aware of other than the penny ones. We think our undeservedly vaunted penny label far surpa.s.sed in its own style by that of the islands of Antigua or St. Vincent, and the St. Kitt's essay here given.

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In the third year after the introduction of postal labels in Great Britain, the canton of Zurich would appear to have entertained the idea of imitating our example, the wonderfully rare if not unique pair of essays bearing the date of 1843 testifying visibly to that intention.

Brazil, however, in the same year actually produced its first set, and is ent.i.tled to all the merit of seconding this marvellously successful move of ours. This was the large figure series, continued in the same style till those lately superseded, of which the red 280 and the yellow 430 reis alone remain in use.

Although the Zurich above alluded to was never in circulation, a pair something like it was so, either in the same or following year. The canton of Geneva next followed the lead. One of its stamps is unique on account of the custom of dividing it when but half value was needed.

The canton of Basle next joined the philatelic ranks, followed after three years' interval by Vaud and Neufchatel. A twelvemonth previously our transatlantic brethren in the United States started the 5 cents bronze bearing the head of Franklin, and the large 10 cents with that of Washington.

In the same year (1847) a decree for the adoption of postage stamps in Belgium was made, which was carried into effect a year and a half afterwards. Six months in advance appeared the beautifully engraved effigies of the French Republic; during the course of twenty years followed the counterfeit presentments of the Presidency, the uncircled, and the laurelled heads of the Emperor Napoleon.

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The ensuing year witnessed emanations from Austria, Bavaria, Lombardo-Venetia, Prussia, Saxony, Sardinia, and the first of the interminable issues of Spain: also the long solitary pair recording the abortive insurrection of Schleswig Holstein in 1848-50. The postal representatives of Schleswig, of Holstein, and of the two States in combination, now number two dozen!

This succession of stamps will ever possess a strong historical interest in consequence of their country's connexion with the startling events attendant on the continental convulsions of 1866. A similar value in relation to European annals, ent.i.tling them to the style and t.i.tle of Paper Medals, must be laid on the now extinct hosts of Hanoverian labels and envelopes, with those of the defunct office of Thurn and Taxis, overwhelmed by the needle-guns of Prussia, after an existence of more than three hundred years.

An approximate idea of the number of postage stamps, current and extinct, may be obtained from the latest edition of any good catalogue.

That of Oppen's Alb.u.m (10th edition) contains about 2,800 distinct individual stamps, but includes no varieties of colour other than those recognised by the most fastidiously disposed collectors, such as the light and dark blues of Thurn and Taxis, first issue; neither does it take much note of proofs or essays, or any of railway or local British labels, or of differences in watermark or mode of perforation; which latter variations are now considered important by the higher order of philatelists.

The stamp-issuing localities amount at present to 122, 51 being in Europe; of these no fewer than seven have enlisted within the past twelvemonths, viz. Servia, the Virgin Islands, Guatemala, Salvador (see p. 758), Heligoland, Breslau, and Turk's Island. The latter is exquisitely engraved, but with the exception of the pink, the colours are execrable. The first two, and the Breslau local are appended.

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Excluding the United States locals, whose name is legion, as well as those of Hamburg, most of which are spurious, the emissions of Spain count the highest. They amount to nearly ninety impressions for general postal purposes, besides several telegraphic and exclusively official issues. The later portraitures of Her Catholic Majesty, if correct, prove how very well she carries her age, with the a.s.sistance, perhaps, of some Spanish Madame Rachel. Compare one of the current set with those depicted at pages 759 and 767 and note the dates.

The United States of North America, and those of Colombia, or the Granadine Confederation, afford us each the liberal allowance of between fifty and sixty varieties in colour, device, or value: the stamps of the former country, which are usually models of choice engraving, bear almost invariably the heads of their worthies, such as the late President Lincoln, and General Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson.

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The memory of the great Confederate struggle will be ever preserved by the postage stamps issued from various cities in the revolting States; such as Memphis, Baton Rouge, Mobile, Charleston, New Orleans, &c. These had fancy devices, but the features of Jefferson Davis and J. C. Calhoun will reach posterity on two of the Confederate issues. On one of them also figures "Hickory" Jackson, a hero of the war in 1812.

It is a singular fact that the ill.u.s.trated postage stamp magazines, &c.

are purchased by non-philatelic collectors for the purpose of cutting out the miniature portraits of celebrities, whose effigies are otherwise less conveniently attainable.

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