The Invention of Puppet Shows, Tumbling and other public amusements, carries us back to a period in history long anterior to the birth of Moses.

In fact, Games of Chance, as well as the sports and pastimes usually enjoyed in their Plays, by the early people of Egypt, were in their zenith in the reign of the Rameses.

Rameses the II. was a magnificent patron of letters as well as art.

The "Sacred Library," which Diodorus mentions, has been discovered in his Palace, the Rameseum at Karnak.

Nine men of learning were attached to the person of this King, and at their head was a certain Kagabu, as "Master of the Rolls," (Books) a man "unrivaled in elegance of style and diction."

From the pen of this master, who may have helped to train the mind of Moses, the King's adopted grandson, in "all the learning of the Egyptians," we still possess the oldest Fairy Tale in the world, a moral story, resembling that of Joseph and his Brethren, composed for the King's son Meneptha, who afterwards became the opponent of Moses, at the time of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.

Our object is not so much with the antiquity of shows, as it is directly with the introduction of "Punch and Judy" into polite society; in proper character, free from superfluous verbiage, and dressing the play in phraseology commensurate with the progress of the age—good taste and refinement.

The performance of Punch in the streets of European cities, unpurified of the vulgar colloquies put into his mouth, by the man who works the Puppets, would not for an instant be tolerated by the people of this country.

"The Play of Punch and Judy," observes a writer in Harper's Monthly, "was exhibited for a short time at a popular place of amusement in New York City, in 1870, but did not take sufficiently with the audience to induce the managers to go on with it."

The true cause of its failure, at the time, doubtless arose from the vulgar and impure language, used by the fellow that worked the Figures.

Where the little Puppets have been properly conducted, the popularity of the show has been unbounded.

With the assistance of Mr. Cruikshank's admirable illustrations, it may be made the medium of the most amusing whimsicalities. We are told that so grave and dignified a personage as an English Secretary of State is certain to be, once paused on his way from Downing street to the House of Commons on a night of important debate to witness the whole performance.