Wit and Humour.

Mataura Ensign, Volume V, Issue 234, 2 March 1883, Page 5

Wit and Humour.

. 4 Why is a general servant like a boot ?— Because the one is maid of all work and the other is also made of awl-work^ What is the difference between a timid child and a shipwrecked sailor ? — One clings to his ma, and the other to his spar. Fond mother—" Is blowing a French horn likely to result in injury to my boy ? " — Doctor — " You can wager it is, ma'am, if he blows it near us, and we catch him." "You are a strange girl," said Charley: ' really, I don't know what to make of you.' 1 Well, then, I'll tell you, Charley/ replied Ararainta 'make a wife of inc.' Charley did so the earliest opportunity. A married lady declined to tell a maiden sister any of her troubles, saying, ' Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.' 4 Yes,' replied the sister; 'and I've come to the conclusion that when singleness ia bliss 'tis folly to be wives.' •Where the deuce have you put my barometer ?' inquired a country squire of his man, an importation from the wilds of Suffolk. ' I heard you say, sir, that the higher it was the finer the weather, so, as I knew you were going to ride to the 'sizes today, I hung it in the front attic' A little girl got rather mixed the other day on the old adage. ' Blood will tell.' , As her parents were discussing some private domestic matters, her mother suggested that; they should ask counsel of her sister Martha, at which the little daughter exclaimed,' Ob, no! don't let Annt Martha know about it, because . blood relations will tell, you know ! ' A Mias Buchanan once rallying an officer on his courage said — " Now, Harry, do you really mean to tell me 'you can walk up to a cannon's mouth without foar ? ' ' Yes,' was the prompt reply, 'or to a Buchanan's either.' And he did it. ' ' What a remarkably ugly man Mr Grace is,' said Colonel Mooney to a pretty and tender-hearted young lady. ' Ah,' replied she, deprecatingly, ' but he has a face that grows on you.' f Hum,' responded the colonel, 'Heaven forbid, madam, that it should ever grow on me.' A lady at sea, full of delicate apprehensions in a gale of wind, cried' out among other pretty exclamations — ' We shall all !go to the bottom. Mercy on us ! how my head swims 1 ' ' Madam, never ' fear,' said one of the sailors ; ' you can never go to the bottom while your head swims.' A Rational Dress Deduction. — Harold— ' Good gracious, Bessy, what outlandish garment have you got there ?' Betjsy — ■' Outlandish, indeed ! Why, this is the new skating divided skirt.' Harold -' Rubbish! That's no good for the ice. Remember what the old adage Bays : — ' United we stand, divided we fall! ' The papers are boasting of the delicacy of a pair of scales at the New York Assay Office, which are so nicely balanced that the mere writing of a name on the back of one of two.pieces of paper exactly alike will turn the scale in its favour. This ia true, however, of any board of bank directors. One day towards nightfall, and in uncertain light, a man bought an overcoat of pretended plum colour. The next morning it proved to be of a quite too unmistakable green. Returning id to the shopkeeper, that worthy regarded the buyer calmly, and said : — ' You must have a little patience with it, my dear sir; it isn't ripe yet.' A Canadian reporter, while chatting with an old soldier of Hibernian nationality, ascertained that the latter had assisted at the funeral of the hero of Waterloo, at London, in 1852. ' I suppose a large body of militia paraded at W ellington's funeral ?' asked the scribe. ' Vis, indeed, and when it was over we resaved a shillin' apiece to dnrink the Duke's health!' was the reply. Brase-worthy Conduct — At length the stormy Skye shows signs of sunshine. The factor of Lord Macdonald visited the Braes on Monday, and had an interview with the orof ters, the result of which was that an arrangement was made by which they become tenants of the desputed grazmgs. The factor — a bene-factor of his species— evidently acted on the principle that it is proper to give .Brae? where JJraea is due.A miller who attempted to be witty at the expense of a youth of weak intellect, accosted him with ' John, people say that you area fool.' Oajthis John replied, 'l don't know that I am, sir j I know some things, sir, and some things I don't know, sir.' ' Well, John, what do you know ?' ' I know that millers always nave fat hogs, air.' 'And what don't you know?' 'I don't know whose corn they eat, sir.' An East Lookport man being estranged from his cat, moistened her ia the canal, with a grindstone for a collar, introduced her to a white bulldog, ran her through a stonecrusher three times, helped her the seventh time to fricasseed lead from his revolver, tied her to the railroad truck until she threw off a palace car, and finally put her into a hollow log and burned the log. Of course the gentle reader will say she rang the door bell the next morning and brought in six white and black kittens, But Bhe didn't. Some one was one day rallying Congress* man Lefevre on his eccentric chirography. ' I ought to write better that's a fact,' he replied. ' Why, Borne time ago I wrote to a man thanking him tor a clipping out from a newspaper about me, and asking him the name and date of the paper, aud he replied, ' 1 am much obliged tor your advice, and will follow it, believing that my claim will go through, and I will at last, get my pea* won, PKQOT DBAS. I've been waiting in the lane, Peggy dear ! In the wind and in the rain, Sticking here I And the former keenly blew, And the latter soaked me through, And I lingered her for you, Peggy dear. But my dream of love is o r er, Peggy dear I I will trouble you no more— Never fear— The appointment was for eight, Up at yonder wicket gate, And eleven's rather late, Peggy dear! I am fated, I'll be sworn, Peggy dear! To wake to-morrow morn, : Pretty queer I Of the poultice and the pill, I shall have to take my fill, And of syrup of the squill. . . Peggy dear! It may please you to be told, Peggy dear! That I ye caught my death of cold— That is clear !' •Twill delight you to have known, When my final breath is flown, ''■ \ That the fault was all your own,