FUNNIOSITIES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4012, 31 May 1884, Page 4

FUNNIOSITIES.

What English Landowners Won't Swear By.—By George ! This is the latest riddle: Why does Mr Gladstone advise the making of jam ?_ Because there are so many "jars" in his Cabinet.

Said a servant, presenting herself to a London housekeeper: " Which I'm_ a hagnostic, if you please'm, but no objection to a Christian family ! " An editor writes : " Give us a house furnished with books rather than furniture." He must be a literary critic. No other man would care to sit on a book. An Indian named "Man Afraid-of-Noth-ing '' married a white woman in Montanya recently and one week after the wedding applied to have his name changed. "Don't eat so mnch on one side of your mouth all the time." was the warning a little up town boy gave his sister. "If you do you will grow fat all one sided." A lady who read that "it's lucky to pick up a horseshoe," picked up one in a blacksmith shop. The suddenness with which she dropped it showed that it was not lucky. A reporter who attended a banquet concluded his description with the candid statement that " it is not distinctly remembered by anybody present who made the last speech." Taking a Sensible View of it.—" Fifty years married and not a single quarrel!" once said a blissful benedict to his spouse. " And very dull it has been," was the ■ wifely rejoinder. A yo\mg writer asks us if we know " any way by which the imagination can be goaded into a trance-like presentation of strange plots and conceptions.' Youngman, have yju ever tried delirium tremens ?

Hand-pninted bonnets are coming into vogue. We hope soon to see landscapes painted on Gainsborough hats. We should then have something to look at, even if the hat itself did hide the entire stage. A citizen of Kentucky "sold his spectacles off his eyes for 30 cents, and then turned right around and spent the money for three drinks of whisky." This is simply a transfer of glasses from above to below the nose. The prohibition editor of the Chicago Sun remarks that "it is impossible for a pawnbroker to be a drunkard, because be takes the pledge every day." " Your logic is faulty, my boy. The pawnbroker doesn't keep his pledges." " What do you want to set such a tough chicken before me for?" indignantly exclaimed a fair damsel in a restaurant the other day. "Age before beauty, always, you know, ma'am," replied the polite attendent, who knew well how to serve his employer and a tough chicken at the same time.

"Pray, sir," said the commissioner to an insolvent brought up to be discharged on his pfitjtion " how could you wilfully, and with your eyes open, contract such a number of debts without any means of paying them?" "Your Honor," said tho petitioner, " labors under a great mistake. I never in my life wilfully contracted debts ; on the contrary, I have invariably done everything in my power to enlarge them."

A gentleman was poring over what to give a young lady friend, and at last decided that it should be a ring, and said to her, "Now, my dear friend, what kind of ring would you like ? It is so very puzzling ; there are so many sorts." " Well, Mr Smith, one, you know, don't like to make a choice in theso matters—little delicate, you understand; but, really, if you insist upon it —why, I should like an engagement ring dearly !" was tho innocent reply. A man from one of the wild sections ot Indiana went to Chicago last month, his wife anddaughtersaccompanyinghim. Theparty passed the day of their visit in " seeing the sights." Amongthe sights was an elevator. One of the daughters was first to discover the elevator movingsilently up and down, receiving and discharging its passengers. She pulled her father's coat-sleeve to direct his attentien to the wonderful thing, and, in words that were heard by every one in tho room, she asked —"What's that, pa?—that funny thing going up and down, with the softies in it ?' The father gave the elevator a long, calm, deliberate stare, and exclaimed, with joy, "My sakes alive ! it's a telephone —the first I ever see !"

"I say," said an irate gentleman at the St. Kilda baths, to the attendant, "how is it I can't find my trousers?" "Don't know, sir," said the attendant. "Perhaps you have forgotten where you left 'em, sir." A search all through the different compartmonts failed to reveal the missing garments. Somobody had evidently annexed them. "They've gone," said the-gentleman, after delivering himself of as much profanity as would supply a Collingwood boot factory employe for a week. " What the devil am Itodo ? They've been stolen." The man looked hurt, and said: " Arc you quite sure you brought them with you, sir?" We came away without hearing the whole of the answer. Having been brought up by pious parents we dare not wait for tho conclusion.