PHLEGMATIC ENGLISHMEN AS GERMANS SEE THEM.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXXV, Issue 6007, 10 October 1887, Page 4

PHLEGMATIC ENGLISHMEN AS GERMANS SEE THEM.

PRACTICAL TO THE LAST. In a first-class carriage in Germany an Englishman was observed to be constantly putting his head out of window. The train was going fast, and a sudden gust of wind blew his hat off. With a frightful oath, he reached down his hat-box and hurled it after the hat. Then he sat down and smiled on his fellow-passengers, but, of course, did not speak. The Germans roared with laughter, and one of them, indulging in an expletive which cur readers will pardon us for not reproducing, exclaimed, " You don't expect your hat-box to bring your bat back to you, do you V " I do," said the Englishman. "No I name on the hat, full • name and hotel address on the box. They'll be found together, and I shall get both ; d'you see now ?" Then those Germans subsided, and said they always had considered the English a great and practical nation. ; ' NO CAUSE VOR EXCITEMENT.. ... An English peer was travelling in a coupe of a first-class railway carriage, when there was a crash and a dreadful jolting, during which his onylordship was tossed about from one, -■side §f the carriage to the other. At length Jt ceased. When he had put his bags and hat up again in tho net and had picked up his rug, he leoked out of the window, and observed four carriages of the train telescoped and shattered, while dying and dead passengers were being extricated from the debris. Presently the conductor came up. "A terrible accident, sir." "Indeed?" " Four carriages completely smashed, sir!" "Ah." "Five passengers killed, sir!" " Really ?" " Your " servant is among them, sir, torn into seven pieces, and we want to know what you would like us to do." "Exactly" (tipping him), "bring me the piece that has got the key of my dressing-bag on it," and mylord retreated again behind his English newspaper. KNEW ITS 'WEAKNESS. That was phlegm with a vengeance, and reminds us of a somewhat similar story of an English soldier who, by one of those accidents which happen even in the beat regulated battles, lost his left arm. He was carried of in an ambulance waggon, but on the morning after the fight went back to look for his arm, with a view to getting back a ring off one of his fingers. History goes on to relate that nothing would induce the tightly-clenched fist to part with its treasure until the former owner, who knew it well, offered it a coin of the realm, when the ha^jd mechanically opened, and the ring, together, we regret to say, with the coin, was snatched away.