VARIETIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5758, 1 May 1880, Page 7

VARIETIES.

How does a man differ from 1 the- brute creation ? _ Hestands upright, bat he doesn't act so. •'• ' ■,•'?■■ ■ . ' A country editor-lately returned a tailor's bill endorsed, "-Declined —handwriting legible." " Many a man's conscience is'just as good'aa new at forty, for the simple reason that -it has never been used. „ In.round numbers'.the trade of the port of Sydney for the currentyeatis at the rate of upwards of £'20,000,000 anfmally. A smart American ghrl calls a youn£ fellow of her acquaintance *' Honeysuckle," Because he is always hanging over the front fence. " Where is there a greater satire upon: man than in chess, where the queen has to do all the work and the king is to be protected. ' "Isn't it about time you,paid that bill?" said a creditor to a delinquent. '' It's not a question of time, but of money, 11 was the response. •, 1 f a hunter will only hunt long enough, he will be sure to pull his gun over a fence by the muzzle, and the day he does that ha q aits hunting. A Miss Tanner, who recently married & widower named Hyde, jvith eleven children, says she has given up tanning and is now dressing Hydes. An orator declaring that fortune knocks at every man's door once, an old Irishman remarked, "When sh^knocked at mino I must hare been out." A Denver print says that an Indian chief left his squaw in a saloon there, the other day, as security for the payment of a whiskey bill. Probably one of the Pawnee-tribe. The vexed question of fees to servants is nowhere settled so easily as in the Turkish bath ; in such places you can honestly plead that yon have no money about you. Dr. Cronr has calculated the time during which the sun has been at work upon the earth's surface, slowly transforming its physical feature, at not less than 100,000,000 years.

Hemp plants are recommended to be cultivated in vineyards, orchards, &c., for the banishment or destruction of noxious insects. It is said there are no harmful insects in the hemp fields. A Home-Ruler editor writes: *It is evident that the apple of discord has been "throws into our midst, and, unless nipped in the bud, it threatens to bnrst forth' in a conflagration •that will deluge the whole land." "Doctor T wonder you don't many. What reason can you have for remaining single?" " Because I don't want to spend all my time in the billiard-room like most married men of my acquaintance." " What would you give to be as young as I am ?" asked a fop of Talleyrand. The wrinkled old wit and diplomatist looked at him a moment, and said,My faith! I would almost be willing to be as foolish." :

Three kittens have died of diphtheria in Ogadenburg, N.Y. They contracted the disease from children affected with it. The post mortem examination showed plainly the diphtheritic membrane in the kittens* throats. 7 Mr. Toole recently asked a provincial manager why he had parted with his leading tragedian. " I conld not help it," ,was the reply; "he ranted so that the people conld hear him outside, and therefore wouldn't pay to go in." French history in the past hundred years exhibits three women who have, perhaps, experiencedjnore splendour and more bitter grief and-mortification than any other three women in the world—Marie Antoinette, Josephine, and Eugenie. Here'is a specimen of superlative elegance. A young lady,- speakiog of the fiance of her dearest friend, whose hair, like the hay this year is rather scarce, said, " It is not exactly a head of hair; it is a kind of mist, which is constantly dispersing itself." Jane (under nine), to her governess: " Miss Blunt, when ma asks you to have some more wine to-day at dinner, do, please, say yes." Governess, "-Why? What do you wish me to take more wine for ?" Jane : " Oh, I only want to see ma's face." The Berlin papers describe a sleigh latelypresented by the Prince of Hohenzollem to his bride, a princess of the honse of Torn and Salis, as a marvel of costly beauty. The body is shaped like a cockleshell, and is o£ polished ebony inlaid -with silver, and the cushions are of the richest purple velvet adorned with silver balls. "Susan," said an Irishman to his fellowservant, "what are the bells ringing for J" "In honour of the princess's birthday," was the reply. "Be easy,'jewel," rejoined Pat, "none of your tricks upon travellers; 'twas the Prince of Wales's on the ninth, and how can it be his*sister's twelve days after, unless indade they were twins 2" Hero is the American definition of an amateur:—"An amateur is any person who has never competed in an open competition, or for a stake, or for public money, or for gate-money, or under a false name, or with a professional for a prize, or where gatemoney is charged, nor has ever at any period of his life taught or pursued athletic exercises as a means of livelihood." A gentleman from Hew Zealand was recently praising the clearness of the climate there, and remarked incidentally that he had seen Jupiter, and all his satellites, hundreds of times on those islands, with the naked eye. A listener enquired if they were laminous ~ bodies of fire, and, on receiving an answer in the affirmative, modestly inquired who had satellite to 'em. This is a little obscure, but worth the entire price of the paper when you grasp it.—San Francisco Times Letter. An ingenious colleague in journalism has discovered that there are in France, at the present moment, 1700 women of letters, and 2150 lady artists, as they are called in England. Two-thirds of the writers were born in the provinces, Normandy, • Brittany, or the South, while two-thirds of the artists are born Parisians. Out of the writers, 1000 publish novels or moral stories for children, 200 are poets, 120 write for pedagogue journals. Out of artists, 107 are sculptors, 602 oil painters, 193 754 ceramists, and 494 water-colour and fan painters, or pastel and crayon drawers. The other night, at a London alub, Bom® Americans were boasting about their inventions and the wonderfal machines to be found | in the States. ' One of them told of the wellknown mincing machine, which) a live pig being introduced at one end, turns out the animal in sausage at the other. An Irishman, who was not going to hare the Yankees riding rough-shod over every other nation, turned on them and said, "Badad, we've got the same machine in Ireland, only ours is more perfect, sure, for if you don't like the sausages, you can put them .back .into the machine, and by reversing the action they'll com 6 out a live pig agin, where ke went in."