BRIEF MENTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 141, 12 June 1909, Page 5

BRIEF MENTION.

" A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men."

The German army numbers over 5,000,000 men. The British National Debt is £762,326,061.

In prison I was not allowed to scrub the floor of my cell. I had looked forward to that. I like scrubbing.—Lady Constance Lytton.

Why should the human race haro been permitted to go wrong? Because they were men, and not machines.—Sir Oliver Lodge.

German agents are buying up horses wholesale in the west of England, despite the scarcity known to exist by the British military authorities.

Silas: Is this the pleasant expression you want ? Photographer : Er— y-e-s* Silas: Well, hurry up; it hurts my face. In this country it is rarely, if ever, that the death of a Jew is registered as due to alcoholism, says the British Medical Journal. I. think that every man who contracts a debt without reasonable expectation of being able to pay it should be sent to prison for a short period.—Mr Justice Phillimore. June 12—Born': Rev. Charles Kingsley, novelist, 1819. Died: Rev. Dr. Thomas Arnold, miscellaneous writer, eminent teacher, 1842; Dr. Robert Brown, eminent botanist, 1858. "Now, Mr Blank, said a temperance advocate to a candidate for municipal honours. "I want to ask you a question. Do you ever take alcoholic drinks?" "Before I answer the question," responded the wary candidate, "I want to know whether it is put as an inquiry or as an invitation!"

If the Church has failed in England it is because we are a curiously undemonstrative people. A man may be dying to do something for the people, but he will look as if he would do anything to get out of their way. —Rev. Dr. Horton. - Small Girl: "Why doesn't baby talk, "father?" Father: "He can't talk yet, dear. Young babies never do." Small Girl: "Oh/yes, they do. Job did. Nurse read to me out of the Bible how Job cursed the day he was born." The delight of the minister of the First Methodist Church, Roscoe, Pennsylvania, r»t finding a £200 note in the collection plate was qualified when the bank informed him it was forged.

"If you don't stop that coughing," said an irritable judge to an old gentleman hv court, "I will fine you five pounds." ■ "I will give your Lordship fifty if you stop it for me," was the quick reply. '

The Temperance Reform Council of Southland will celebrate on 80th June the anniversary of the carrying of no-license in Invercargill. Among the speakers will be the Key. It. M. Ryburn and the Revs. J. Dawson and Dewesbury, of "Wellington.

"I wonder if it's really true, as they say, that the 'darkest hour is just before the dawn," asked one mail of another. "I shouldn't be surprised," was the reply. "I notice that when I get home from the club, just before dawn, I fall over everything in the house." •

"Feed the brute" is a good formula for keeping a husband at home. Butdon't forget there are several kinds of hunger. Many a well-fed dog has broken out of his kennel because -he was lonesome.

Someone asked Dr. Beecher," when an old man, how he was getting along. "Oh, lam doing; a thousand times better than I used to, because I have made up my mind to let God manage his owniwiiverse," he replied. "Ah, me," said a sentimental young lady, "why do the roses fade slowly away?" "Well," replied the matter-of-fact young man, "when you think it over, it's all for the best. It's more comfortable to have them fade slowly away than to go off all <f a sudden, like a torpedo."