WIT AND HUMOUR.

Evening Post, Volume XLIV, Issue 44, 20 August 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

WIT AND HUMOUR.

Archbishop Usher was wrecked on the coast of Ireland, in a wild and desert place. In his distress he went to the house of an ecclesiastic, a man reserved and prudent almost to distrust, and, to conciliate him, alluged his sacred character. The ecclesiastic, in a tone hardly civil, refused to believe him, and said he would answer for it he had never known how many commandments there were. " I can prove to you," said the Archbishop, with mildness, " that I am not so ignorant as you think. There are eleven." 'Eleven," answered the ecclesiastic. ' • Very well ; tell me the eleventh, and I will give you all the help you need." '' Here it is," replied the Archbishop. '• A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another." Breaking it gently. — Foreman (quarry gang^ — •' It's fad news oi hoy fur yez, Mrs. M'Gaharraghty. Y'r husband's new watch is broken. It wuz a foine watch, an' it's smashed all to piecos." Mrs. M'G. — '' Dearie me ! How did that happen ? " Foreman — "A ten- ton rock fell on 'im." Little James, four and a half years old, was pointing out a cow to a playmate. "See the bell around her nock," he said ; "do you know what that is for ? That's what she rings when she wants to tell the calf that dinner is ready." "Is it true that you have been saying that Green here had stolen your purse?" "Oh, no — I did not go so far as to say that ! All I said wus that, if Green had not assisted me in looking for the purse, I should have found it again." Chicago man — " I understand that you have said that I was not honest in my business affairs ?" Boston man — "A mistake, sir. I simply said you were not sufficiently scrupulous to jeopardise success." Friend (to young writer) — "I see that Brooks, the publisher, has failed, and been sent to an asylum, hopelessly insane." Young writer (bitterly)— " Just my luck. It was only last week that he accepted a btory of mine." "Miranda," said the proprietor, "do you know anything about the minister that is going to have charge of the church in the next block hereafter?" "Yes," replied the saleswoman ; "he is a tall, fine-looking man, about twenty-eight, and he isn't married." "Miranda," said the proprietor briskly, " you may put all the new bonnets in the store in that front window right away." Why do people go to betting offices ? — Because they know no bettor. Encouraging! — (James is giving his second-best girl a private view of his first appearance in silk, and is not exactly bursting with confidence as to his ultimate success in the field.) S.B.G. — " I think it is sweetly pretty, James ; and — cr — by the way, before the race comes off, hadn't you better give me the price of those diamonds you promised me ? One never knows what may happen, you know." A weight carrier. — 'The favourite is taking a preliminary canter.) — Jane (thinks she " knows something") — "Looks rather shaky in tho legs, doesn't he ?" Clara (satirically) — •' Can you wonder ? when the whole stable has been on him for weeks !" The Judgo became preacher, and when he married his first couple he said — " I pronounce sentence on you as ni'in and wife, and may God have morcy on your souls." The culprits left happy. Tho polite letter writer.' — Mistress (writing a letter for her maid) — '•Anything more?" Maid — "Just say, please, Miss, that ray pen is bad, I hasn't got a dictionary 'andy, so please excuse bad spellin' and writin'." Jones — " I see there was a boating accident at Ipswich the other day." Smith — "I am surprised to hear that." Joues— " Why ?" Smith— " Because everyone living at Ipswich ctm use the O(a)rwell." " It's a matter of course," as the sportsman told the S.P.O.A. man when hie greyhound killed a hare. The following anecdote shows how a young gentleman made money by publishing a book of poems. The publisher wrote, immediately after the book was published :—": — " Dear sir, — Your whole edition has gone off, leaving a balance of £20 in your favour. Cheque enclosed. P.S. — There was a fire in the warehouse, and the contents were insured." " I moant to have told you of that JioW B^jd an Irishman to a friend, who had fallen into a pit in the .Irishman's garden. "No matter," said the other, "I've found it." "Now," said the physician, "you will have to eat pjain food and not stay out late at ujght." " Yes," replied the patient) "thst is what I have been thinking ever since you sent in your bill." Aunt Furby Low (reading) — ¦¦' Here's where two men went dowu in .on.o ,of the city sewers and wore killed by sower gas. What do they want gas in a &es"er for, I wonder ?" Uncle Si Low (in deep disgust)— "To see by, of course. Do you lliiuk sewers have winders in them?" ''What did you get out of that i-ase?" asked the old lawyer. "I got my .client out of it," replied the ywung one. " Aud what did he get out of ijb?" " Sal;isfa,ct£on, I reckon. L didn't leave anything ,els,9 for him to get." " Young maa," said the senior, proudly, " j-ou'll never be a Judge. There is not enough money on the Bench for 3 T ou."