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Massachusetts Flats.

Massachusetts must abound in Flats.  Its Legislature is annually agitated from the sands of Cape Cod to the hills of Berkshire over the question.  It is said to be wisdom to set a rogue to catch a rogue.  Is it equally so to set a flat to catch one?

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NATIONAL TAXIDERMY.

[Illustration ‘P’]

PUNCHINELLO has for some time past carefully considered the subject of our national tariff of imposts, (that is to say, he happened to see, in a Tribune, the other day, that lucifer matches were now to be stamped separately, and not by the box, as heretofore) and he has come to the conclusion, after duly weighing in his mind all the arguments for and against the present system of taxation, (that is to say, he made up his mind the minute he read the article,) that what the present tariff needs, is a more thorough application and a better classification; or, what the technologists call Taxonomy, which term is suggested to him by a work on the subject which he has been recently studying. (That is to say, he looked in the dictionary to find out what Taxidermy meant, and seeing Taxonomy there, snapped it up for a sort of collateral pun.) As an illustration of what our impost legislators (or imposters) ought to be, let us take the Taxidermist.  He is one who takes from an animal every thing but his skin and bones, and stuffs him up afterward with all sorts of nonsense.  Now, our National Taxidermists ought to take a lesson from their original.  Many of the good people of the United States have much more left them than their skin and bones.  Why is not all that taken?  The condition of the ordinary stuffed animal of the shops is strikingly significant of what should be expected of loyal communities. (That is to say, communities which vote a certain ticket which need not be named here.) It is often said that there are things which flesh and blood will not bear.  Now, a thorough system of Taxidermy remedies all this.  A stuffed ’possum, for instance, having no flesh or blood, will bear any thing.  When the people of this country are thoroughly cleaned out, they will be just as docile.  Among the things which PUNCHINELLO would recommend as fit subjects of taxation, is a man’s expenses.  They have not been taxed yet.  If he pays for his income, why not for his outgoes?  The immense sums that are annually expended in this country for this, that, and the other thing ought certainly to yield a revenue to the government. (That is to say, there ought to be a new army of collectors and assessors appointed.  P. knows lots of good men out of office.) And then there’s a man’s time.  Why not tax that?  Nearly every man spends a lot of time, and he ought to pay for it.  As it would be our tax, it could not be a very minute tax, although it is only the second tax which we have suggested. (That