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Northern Advocate, 1 September 1888, Page 3

RAKINGS.

Pope's oath was "God mend me." A link • boy, to whom he had refused a penny, looking at his diminutive*, crooked stature, cried out : " God mend you indeed ? It would be less trouble to make a new one." At a church school, once upon a time, when a concert was beiDg held, the choir was on the programme to sing an anthem, and their place was designated by the single word " Anthem." The gentleman who was master of ceremonies, a high-toned, pompous individual of the old scnool, when he came to that part of the programme, announced, in a dignified way : — «' Mr anthem will now favour us."

Vhere is a charming Welsh poem with thistitle; " Poor Nancy Jones, of Llanfairpwlch--gwyngergobwlchllandyssiliogogo." Here is one stanzft AS S specimen of the touching verses, in which the poet laments the fate of his herione:— The winter passed, the springtime came, the summer sun shone bright ; A green grave lies beneath the shade of Snowdon's kingly height, And many a tear I shed for her who lies in death so low — Lost Nancy Jones, of Llanfairpwlchgwyngergobwlchllandyssiliogogo. "A flea one-sixteenth of an inch in length," says a writer on natural history, " can jumjf a distance of twenty inches, which is 320 times its length. No other insect can out- jump a flea " A certain bank-clerk, who is £5,000 short, and five feet eight inches long, jumped 400 miles. But that's another kind of flea. A ticket collector combats the current hallucination that the comiag generation of his countrymen will be puny, sickly, and played out. His experience of many years convinces him that the contrary is the case, and that the average child of "under twelve" who travels with a half -fare ticket is as large as a boy or girl of fifteen or sixteen used to be in anterailway days. " Well ! " remarked a young man to a group of friends, " the only girl I ever really loved is to be married on "the 10th of next month." "Too bad, old fel," said a member of the party. " STou have my sympathy." " You know the old story about as good fish in the sea' don't you?" inquired another. "Why don't you punch the lucky fellow?" asked a puglistic member, " and prevent him from coming to time at the wedding ? " " Who is the lucky man?" asked the fourth member of the gathering. "If you would only give me a chance I will tell you. She is to marry me.'* A gentlemen called upon a friend in the country who is an engineer and an adept at all kinds of mechanical contrivances. " Your front gate is very hard to open," he said, on entering " you ought to have it altered." "Not I, indeed." " Why not? " " Because everyone who comesj through it lifts two buckets of water into jHiefponse."