WEATHER-WIT.

It is probable that the -weather, more especially the British vaiietv, has been the occasion of more humour—goodhumour and ill-humour —than any other institution. The small bay's definition in his school essay, "The weather is a thing you talk about when you have not got anything else to say," ignores the essential importance of the weather. It is • not only a great subject—it is also a great joke. The remark one I hears to the elfect that "This -weather's 'no joke" is not to be taken seriously. , And that other remark, "Fanny weather we're having," enshrines a literal truth. "The ■weather," one humorist has written, "is like the Government, always in the wrong. In snmmer-time we say it is stifling; in. winter that it is killing; in spring and autumn we find fault with it for being neither the one thing nor the other, and wish it would make up its mind. If it ie fine we say the country is being ruined for want of rain; if it does rain we pray for fine weather. If December passes without sno-w, we indignantly demand to know what has become of our good oldfashioned winters, and talk as if we had been cheated out of something that we had bought and paid for; and wihen it does snow our language is a disgrace to a Christian nation. We shall never be content until each man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself," says the "Strand." It -was Mark Twain who iwrote a book and prefaced it with a few meteorological descriptions: "The -weather contained in this book." Then he asked the reader to select therefrom his own weather for any particular period of the story. As to cold, we have been told of a place where the cows froze stiff all the winter, and when spring came they thawed" out and supplied the inhabitants with ice-cream all the summer. Sydney Smith has described a day so hot that he -wished to strip off his flesh and sit in his bones. There have been times so wet that the very ducks began to climb trees, and fogs so thick that a man kissed a pretty neighbour in ' mistake for his own wife or sister. It is a transatlantic humorist who reminds us of the probable experience of Noah's contemporaries of the weather prophecy. He, of course, had prophesied "Fine weather," and then came the Deluge.

But every humorist has had a shot at the weather, and no country has been so prolific in weather humour as our own, unless, indeed, it is America, where meteorological vagaries are almost as trying as with us. Thackeray wrote an amusing paper on "How to Ascertain the Weather," full of useful hints. "Perhaps the best method," he wrote, "of ascertaining the fact of its being warm or cold is to go cut into the air; but, if you are unable to do this, and a person coming in from out of doors is seen to rub his hands you may presume that {he atmosphere is chilly. When the wateT-eaxts are particularly active you may expect rain; and if a flash of lightning is visible, prepare for thunder." This joke is a perennial one.

"When you see the advertisement of a flower show, it would be prudent to provide yourself on the day named with an umbrella. "If your water has not come into your cistern you may conclude there has been frost, unless you happen to be in arrears ■with your rates, when the phenomenon may otherwise be accounted for." "What you nwd,". once remarked a doctor to his patient, "is change of climate."

"Change of climate!" cried the man. "That's what's the matter with mc. If the climate would only keep the same a few days running I would be all right."

This mutability of the weather reminds one of the indignant customer who returned to the shopman saying:

'"Look here, that barometer you sold mc a month ago has got out of order. It won't work."

"No wonder, sir. Look -what a lot of weather it's 'ad lately!"

A century and a half ago people used to depend upon the weather prognostications of Partridge's Almanac One day Partridge himself put up at a country inn for dinner. The hostler advised him to stay the night, as it would certainly rain. "Nonsense!" said Partridge, and proceeded on his way. Soon a heavy shower fell, which so impressed the traveller that he instantly rode back to the inn and offered the hostler half a crown if he would tell him how he knew rain was imminent.

"Well,"' replied Uie man, with a grin, pocketing the coin, "the truth is we hare Partridge's Almanac here; and he's such a liar that whenever he promises a fine day we know it will be foul. To-day is set down as fine." The wea-ther-prophet, like many other weatherprophets before and since, passed on discomfited.

It -will be remembered that the illus

trious Mr Dooley, after much cogitation came to the conclusion, which ho confided to his friend Hennessy, that "There's two kinds iv weather—human weather and weather-bureau ■weather."'

"No wa-ii knows," continued the philosopher, "what causes bureau weather. Xo wan knows what causes human weather. Hogan says th , seasons is caused be th' sun movin' fr'm th' thropic of Cancer to th , thropic iv Capsicorn, an f whin 'tis in wan place, we suffer fr'm th , coir!, an' thats winter, an' when 'tis in th' other place we suffer fr'm th' heat, an , that's summer. Hogan says it, but Hogan can't tell you why, if that's so, th' days don't get hotter from March st-hraight through to October. Some people says th' summers caused be fires in th' bowls iv th' earth, where hell used to be whin I -was a boy; but if ye believe that, why ain't we cooked th' year round ? Father Kelly thinks 'tis th' spots on th' sun does it, an' Schwarzmeister thinks 'tis th' brewer's agent. Iveryibody has a guess, an' wan man's guess is as good as another. That's our weather. "Th' Weather Bureau ought to lave it - alone an' sthick to its own. that rains whin they'se a high pressure in Maine, an' snows whin they'so a low pressure iri Texas. Th' Weather Bureau weather is Rood parlor weather, but th' kind Wβ have to dhrive sthreet-cars in is out-iv-dure weather, subject to the rigors of Hi , climate. The Weather Bureau's weather is on a map and our weather JB in th' air. That's why th , pro-fisser ! fails an' Clancy's leg is a great success. ' Tis an out-iv-duro leg." "I don't believe in army kind iv weather prognosifioations,"* said Mr Hennessy. "We 11 .,, said Mr Dooley, "if I was goin' into th' business I niver wuj prophesy till th' day afther." There are some interesting examples of philosophy ac regards the weather air for instance,, tbet of iMt Pegram's

bus conductor, who himself upon the in winter. There «* beat the story of the Amerfe * who came across a man out w!L t ° ar '* on a stump. "How's the ing you? , he asked. "PreitlTl?**. stranger," replied the man? some trees to cut down, but V^j* l \ came along and levelled them "That was a piece of htik? !£** tourist. "Tee; and then- 2S «* the man, "there was a storm iSIN lightning set fire to the 1«&S?*» ! saved mc the trouble "Remarkable! But what aw**"*,*" now?" "Oh, I'm just wai&^ 'Its gaun to rain sir." ' ™ *ft "Come, come, ,, said the ■'Surely the world was entirely^ , m forty days." " wre V;-fl^ "Aye aye!" was the respond the warld wasn' se weel dra^^J*