Facetiae.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 532, 26 September 1873, Page 7

Facetiae.

Both watermen and wild " Indians feather their skulls. Wanted, <i needle to sew a patch on the pants of a tired dog. Punctuation first used in literature, 1520. Before thattimevrordsandsentences wereputtogetherlikethis. " Prisoner, you are charged with habitual drunkenness. What have you to offer in excuse for your offence ?" " Nothing, your honor, except habitual thirst." Judge Hoar said of a lawyer : "He has reached the superlative life ; at first he sought to get on, and then sought to get honor, and now he is trying to get honest." A bereaved husband, in an obituary notice of his deceased wife, wrote, " She has gone to her eternal rest ;". but to his horror the newspaper printed it, "She has gone to her eternal roast." A little boy in Maine entreated his mother to tell him some storie3 about bad boys, and, upon her expressing astonishment, said he " wanted to find out how they got out of scrapes." A father recently found his little girl's chubby little hands full of the blossoms of a beautiful rose tree, on which he had bestowed great care. "My dear," said he, " did I not tell you not to pluck one of these trees withoub leave !" " Yes, papa," said the child, " but all these had leaves." A minister, who was changing his living, took for the text of his farewell sermon Acts xx.22, " And I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me." "Ah?" paid the laird, loudly enough, "weel kens he that the stipend is fifty pun better than the stipend here." The following anecdote is related of Whitefield, and contains admonition against self-glorification : — He had just; finished one of his sermons when a man came reeling up to him and said, "How do you do, Mr Whitefield ?" He replied, "I don't know you, sir." "Don't know me. Why you converted me so many years ago, in such a place." " I shouldn't wonder," replied Mr Whitefield, "you look like one of my converts : for if the Lord had converted you, you would have been a sober man." Max Adeler, an American humorist, says : — " We were very much pleased to hear, the other day, that Don Carlos has offered to present the Spanish throne to his son. This kind of generosity is too noble to pass unrewarded, and it shall not nasa. If Don Carlos does this act we will make him a present of Commodore Yanderbilt's fortune, and throw in the Island of Nova Scotia and the State of New Jersey. We are only a poor, untitled Eepublic, without any royal blood in our veins ; but no man shall surpass us in generosity, particularly with other people's property. Use of a Eeceipt. — An Indian of the Choctaw tribe, Kiser by name, owed a lawyer some money. • The lawyer had waited long for tho tin. His patience at last gave out, aud ho threatened the Indian with law suits, processes and executions. Tbe poor Choctaw got scared, and finally brought the money to the creditor. Ho waited for the lawyer to give him a receipt. " What are you waiting for ?" said the lawyer. " Eeceipt," said the Indian. " A receipt," j said the lawyer — " a receipt ! What do ! you know about a receipt ? Can you I understand the nature of a receipt ? Tell me the use of one and I will give it to you." The Indian looked at him a | moment, and then said : " S'poso may be me die ; me go to heben ; mo find de gate locked ; me see Apostle Peter ; he says, ' Kiser, what you want ?' me say ' want to get in ;' he say, ' you good man ?' me say 'yes ;' he say, 'you pay Mr A. that I money ?' What me do! I had no receipt ; hab to hunt all over h — — to find you." He got his receipt. W"hat adepts advertisers are in ambiguity even in these enlightened days. A. lady in a Boston paper publishes her desire to obtain a husband ' with a "Roman nose having strong religious tenj dencies.' ' A spinster, particularly fond lof children, ' informs the public that she ' wishes for two or three, having none of her own? Somebody wants 'a young man to look after a horse of the Methodist persuasion ;' a draper desires to meet 'with an assistant who would 'take an active and energetic interest in a sroal}, first-class trade, and in a quiet family j* and a Boston chemist advertises : ' The gentleman who left his stomach for analysis will please call and get it, together with the result.' Slipshod English is not, however, confined to the ■advertising columns, or we should not r-cad of the shooting of a wildcat 'by a little boy five feet eipjit inches long ;' of a procession which was ' very fine, and nearly two miles in length, as was also the prayer of Mr Perry, the > chaplain ;' nor should we be much scandalised to note the fact, recently stated in an American journal, that a self-made man arrived in California twenty years ago with only one shirt to his back, and since then has contrived, by close application to busi- ' nefs, to accumulate over two millions.''