VARIETIES.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 400, 3 January 1872, Page 7

VARIETIES.

A little boy having broken his rockinghorse the day it was boujrbt, his mother began to rebuke him, and to threaten to box his ears. He silenced her by inquiring, What is the good of a hoss till it's broke?" Long ago, at a dinner-table in Massachusetts, a gentleman remarked that A- , who used to be given to sharp practice, was getting more circumspect, •'Yes," replied Judge Hoare^ "he has reached the superlative of lift?. He began by seeking: to get on ; then he sought to get honor j and now he is trying 1 to get honest." In the obituary notice of a lady the editor wrote : —" It is feared that her husband will nipt be able to bear her demise" —which tbe careless compositor, with but a change ottwo letters, transformed to " It is feared that her husband will not be able to wear her chemise.''* The horror of the bereaved husband, and of rhe editor, and of the mourning relatives may be imagined. A policeman, fond of reading, told a friend that, for amusement, when off duty, be often " took up " a book. Beginning Life. —The remark ot a contemporary, ''that many of our successful lawyers commenced life as preachers, 1' is jfracefully corrected by one of the legal gentlemen referred to, who begs leave to state that he be^an life as an infant. When is an original idea like a clock ? — When it strikes one. When does a horse eat best ? —When he hasn't a bit in his mouth. At Lawrence, Kansas,, a few Sundays ago, while a minister was holding forth in a church, a crowd got np a cock-fight ia the yard. The people who had congregated in the church went out to put a stop to the iitrhf., but waited till ie was over before objecting. The minister looked out of the window, and said, ' We are all miserable sinners —which licked?" When M. Halanzier, the present Impresario of rhe Grand Onera in Paris, is sure of his subvention (24,000) promised by the Minister of Fine Art" (iVI. Jules Simon), he will lose no time in producing IM. Gounod's " Polyeucte" and the '• Pysche "of i\f. Ambroise Thomas ; but before these composers hand over their scores, they will exact certain re-engage-ments, such as those of Madame Sasse and M. Faure. It is said that certain aristocratic temperance men have refused to have anything to do with water, because it is so often drunk. A guest at a western hotel, finding a long hair in the butter, ordered the waiter to brinjr him some " bald-headed butter." A female "Professor of Great Mysteries" advertises in a city paper that she will " cure disease after recovery is impossible." We know how to cure bacon that is hopelessly dead. Josh Billings says that having spent six weeks at Long Branch, frolicking in the water, he has gone to Saratoga to let the water frolic in him. When is a youn^, lady " very like a whale !" When she's pouting. A gentleman whose love of order was largely developed, had a clerk in his employ whose habits about, the office were anything but. orderly. Nothing under liis hand had a fixed locality, and everything was at odds an ends. This carelessness brought out a reproof from tbe employer, who quoted tbe old precept, and said — " Sir, you should have a place for ever} rthing." " I have, sir," replied the junior, '• a great many places for everyihing." The ' Atlantic Sun ' calls its column of short paragraphs Sun-strokes. Here s an expression which needs not to be explained: — " Charlie ! what is osculation ?" " Osculation, Jenny dear, Is a learned expression queer, For a nice sensation. I put my arm thus, round your waist, This is approximation ; You need not fear — There's no one here — Your lips quite near — I then " " Oh, dear!" "Jenny, that's osculation." Dr Lettsom, a famous physician of the last century, used to sign bis prescriptions, " I. LHttsora," which gave rise to the following: —• " When any patients call in haste, J physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em ; Jf after that they chooee to die, Why, what cares I ? —: I. Lets'em." An Australian Honey Hoard. —A tree was felled the other day at Sandy Creek, Wa^ga Wagga, for the purpose of procuring honey, which it was known had been collected there by a rather large . swarm of bees. When the tree was cut down there was found in the hollow one of the most astonishing collections of honey ever known, probably, to have been gathered by one swarm of bees. There were several immense layers of comß tea feet in length, and of great density, extending along the inside of the trunk, and almost clothing the hollow of the tree entirely. After it had been carried home (having been wasted considerably by the fall of the tree, and ihe primitive mode in which it was collected), the comb yielded over 2001 b, of honey of the purest quality. —'Melbourne Arirus.'