ODDS AND ENDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9452, 24 August 1889, Page 4 (Supplement)

ODDS AND ENDS.

Age is venerable in man, and would be in woman if ever she became old.

Plenty of sleep is conducive to beauty. Even a garment looks worn when it loses its nap. Friend : "Do you live happily with your husband ?" Muscular female : "Of courso I do. I'd like to see him try not to livo happily -with me." ; Pat says that if only men could hear their ! funeral sermons and read their own headstones, there would be no living in the world with them at all. After I finish breakfast- at Mrs. Slimdiet's," remarked Chumley, " I feel like a martyr." " I see," observed Dumloy, "you have suffered at the steak." It seems to be the custom for European rulers to kiss when they meet. Perhaps that explains why the other monarchs visit Queen Victoria so seldom. Higgins : "I heard you lost a pile on 'Change yesterday." Wiggins : You heard right." H. : "Were you a bull or a bear ?" W. : "Neither ; I was a jackass." Young wife : "George, I'm not going to the theatre again till high hats go out of fashion. I always have the bad luck to sit behind one." George : " That's just what I heard the man say who sat behind yau last night." Physician : " Patrick, don't you know better than to have your pigstye so close to the house?" "An' phy shud oi not, sir?" "It's unhealthy." "Be away wid yer nonsince. Shure the pig has never been sick a day in his life." " You are charged with stealing chickens, Uncle Rastus." Uncle Rastus: "Yes,.sah; sol understand." Magistrate: "Have you ever been arrested before?" Uncle Rastus : " Only wonce bofo', you honah. I'se always been very lucky." "How can you afford to give a five-cent cigar and a shave for eight cents?" was asked of a barber. "Oh, I give 'em the cigar first an' they go away without the shavo, or I shave 'em first and fchoy skip without the cigar." A former housekeeper at Gordon Castle, Scotland, after pointing out to visitors the various family portraits, &c., when sho came to a bust of Marcus Aurelius used to say— " And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the Marquis of Railways." Brown: " Shockin' thing ! You heard of poor Mullins getting his neck broken in that collision !" Jones: "Ah ! it's astonishing how lucky some fellows are. He told me last time I saw him he'd just insured his life for three thousand pounds." In England young men speak of their father as "the governor," " pater," the " overseer.," etc. In America they say "dad," " the boss," or " the old man." In heathen countries they say "father," but they are a long way behind the age. " Don't you find the life of a tramp very disagreeable?" asked the farmer's wife. " Oh no," rejoined the wanderer ; "it ain't half so disagreeable as the people I meet. I don't mind the life so much as I do the dogs and tho things I git to eat." Mr. Waldo (at a Chicago evening entertainment) : " Do you know that very bril-liant-looking woman at the piano, Miss Breezy Miss Breezy : "Oh, yes, intimately. I will be glad to present you, Mr. Waldo." Mr. Waldo: "Thanks. Is she an uumarricd lady ?" Miss Breezy : " Yes, she has been unmarried twice."

Chicago editor : " See here, sir, this won't do. You refer to fcli3 lamented Mr. Greatman, of Chicago, as having been ' gathered to his fathers.' " New man (from the East) : "It is ft Biblical term, sir, and I have seen it used in Philadelphia." Chicago editor : "It won't do here. Mr. Grcatman's mother wtis divorced, and married half-a-dozen times, and it might look like a reflection on the family." Scene, very near St. Martin's Lane. Time, night. Higgins : " What a frightful row !" Brown "Yes; it's a fight!" Higgins (champion cynic of his own bright circle): " Yes. I bet, Brown, my boy, there's a woman at the bottom of it." Brown : " Well, you're wrong for once; she's on the top r and to judge from the muffled sound of the old man's voice, it looks as though she was going to stop there." " You have daughters, have you not, sir ?" said a minister to an old gentleman with whom he had formed a casual acquaintance as a fellow-traveller. The old gentleman essayed to answer, but the question seemed to affect him. "I beg your pardon," said the minister, gently, "if I have thoughtlessly awakened in your mind recollections of a painful nature. The world is full of sorrow, sir, and perhaps my question recalls to your memory a fair, beautiful girl, whose blossoming young life withered in its bloom. Am I nob right, sir?" "No, not exactly," replied the gentleman, sadly. "I have five unmarried daughters, mister, and the youngest of the lot is 28 years old."