CURRENT HUMOUR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

CURRENT HUMOUR

■ / stone wall never hits a motor-car : unless in self-defence. The thing that strikes you most sbout modern 'cars is—tho radiator. ' The ideal hysband is the one who pever s notices his wife is getting stouter. The ohlv social function at which a ' man is indispensable nowadays is a redding.' . /, 1 a motoring expert tells us tho £4O wr is bound to come. The real questipu } s: Will it go? When a man tries to drown his •sorrow, he °f ton t^iat iea( l keeps swimming. - i'f'm told that a game vaguely resolo whist was played centuries ago," s»y s a v;ritor v lt; still is - An animal trainer says that dogs orpr forget a trick. They have much ? common with tho fiends wo play bridge with so often. <i rpjjQ Irish will never solve their enrial problems with a bomb," declares rtM.P. It will only bring about a temporary uplift. Two choirbovs are said to have sold racing tips at choir practice. Many of S friends speak warmly of their €Wee t childish trebles. A gossip-writer mentions that his barber is a very highbrow sort of fellow Onrs has a nasty habit of talking over our heads, too. According to a dance band leader, TWhrnd cave 'America the saxophone. ' America saw to ,t that , 'jre got our own back.

STILL SUNNING Neighbour- "Where is your brother - Bobby ?" / V . Tommy: "He's at home playing a iduet with me—l finished first." JOINT ACCOUNT " Yes," said the massive wife of the f obviously henpecked husband, "it will - be -a joint account. My husband will make the deposits, and I'll draw the cheques!" , • HIS MODEL Guide: " This little stream disappears in the middle of the town and comes up again at the inn in the next village." r Tourist:. " Ah, just like my husband.". < WILLING TO WAIT "I want to know if you will be my . jrife?" "What's your salary?" "Three pounds a week." "Three'pounds! Why that wouldn't keep me in handkerchiefs." "Oh, very well—l'll wait until your jcoldV better." LOST TREASURE The professor had just received a title, and the reporter was trying to get some information from the great man's wife. "And what," he asked, "is the professor's princi pal research ? " •' "Well," replied his sorely-tried wife, "it;consists principally in hunting for _«is spectacles." - ' * i . BIG ENOUGH The newly-married wife was making her purchase at the bookshop. "I'll take that half-crown cookery book," she said. "We have a larger edition at five shillings, macfym," said the assistant. "No, thanfe you," said the bride. 'You see, both my husband and I are Email eaters 1" j, ASKED FOR IT The lift was crowded, and the lift .attendant was about to close the gates /when he accidentally stepped on the foot of a very stout and fussy woman. ''You clumsy man 1" said the latter. Do you think rny feet were made for a fool to walk on?" The lift attendant gazed at her for * moment and then replied. "I should JUagine so, madam."

Millions of pounds are spent on lipstick every year. Who said that women didn't cater for the masculine taste? ." In my opinion," says a manufacturer, " the ideal car for general purposes is an eighteen." Horse-power or monthly instalments? Rooks live together in regiments, a naturalist explains, while Grows prefer a more solitary existence. Tho latter, in fact, have no esprit de caw.

HARDLY "I've just been reading about a machine which does the work of ten men. It almost has brains." "Not if it, does all that work." - ... • - ■ RETALIATION " My wife has a queer way of getting even with the Telephone Department.' "How's that?" " She uses my car to knock down their poles." COMING 1 Husband (shouting upstairs to wife): "For the last time, Mary, are you getting up?" Wife: "Haven't I been telling you the last hour that I'll be down in a minute!" AMMUNITION " I've altered your medicine this week, Tommy/' said the doctor.lt's tablets, not pills." . " But I want pills," complained Tommy. , " Why, there's no difference." "Isn't there! Have you tried blowing tablets through a pea-shooter?" TAKING NO CHANCES A farmer and his wife walked from their farm to the country fair, the wife laden with a heavy lunch basket. Once arrived at the fair, the farmer considerately turned to his wife and said: , , " You'd better let me carry the basket now, Jill; we might get separated in the crowd." WHY, INDEED? It was dinner time at the barracks. "Any complaints?" asked the orderly officer. . . Private Timkms jumped to his feet. "Yessir, I've got one," he said. "This Irish stew's funny!" The officer stared hard at the man. "Funny," he echoed. "Then why aren't you laughing?" EASING THE BLOW A very valuable dachshund, owned by a wealthy woman, was run over. "The policeman detailed a man to tell the woman of her misfortune. "But break the news gently," ho said. "She thinks a lot of this dog." The man rapped on the mansion door and when the woman appeared, he said: "Sorry, lady, but part of your dog has been run over."

Jog Louite, tho negro heavyweight champion, sleeps twelve hours a day and never suffers from insomnia. Neither, apparently, do liis opponents.

In Scotland recently a largo tobacco warehouse caught fire. Wo understand that extra police had to be called out to keep back the crowd of inhalers. An American woman who divorced threo husbands has now re-married her first. No. 2 is said to have joined an expedition to the interior of Tibet. " Where is tho man who doesn't like to seo smiling, cheerful faces round him when things go wrong?" asks a writer. You'll find him on any golf courso. An American prophet urges his followers to gather with him on the top of a mountain on Juno 16 next, as the world will end on that day. If wet, in the drill-hall. A party of ornithologists are to charter an aeroplane so that they can study the habits of birds in the air. Well, there is nothing like being up with the lark. A French barrister, who has a library of over eight thousand volumes, sued a friend who refused to return a volume he had borrowed. Even a bookworm will turn. The defendant in a court case last week stated that his business was laying out football grounds. A man who appeared at another court seemed to specialise in doing the same with referees. MIGRATED Mrs. Swanke: "My new maid comes from a very good family." Mrs. Sharper "Oh —er —yes. I suppose she wanted a change?" LOST IT He (not a brilliant conversationalist) : "Something came into my mind just now and went away again." She (bored): "Perhaps it was lonely."

ALL THAT MATTERED Family pride in an athletic son can reach great heights, but it was equalled by the partisanship of one father for the local team in which his son played scrum-half. When an important match was being played some distance from home, he asked his son to wire the result. That evening the telegram came, bearing the curt message: "Collarbone* and one rib broken." "Yes, yes," exclaimed the father, impatiently, "but he doesn't say who won."

■ An American chiropodist says that policemen's feet are becoming smaller. It is developments such as these that cause much hardship among humorists.

Last week a cat belonging to a suburban resident swallowed a doll's handbag. We understand that a vet. was sent for to lot tire bag out of tbe cat. "Who couldn't sympathise with the man who finds it necessary to rob Peter to pay Paul?" asks an economist. At a rough guess, we should say Peter. - " What is the good of expeditions into the stratosphere?" asks a correspondent. Well, it would be comforting to know if there are any signs of the high cost of living coming down. "Some men's slightest actions give them away," declares a writer. For instance, there was the regrettable case of the gentleman who tried to blow the froth off a Charlotte Russe. " Men aro only grown-up boys," says a woman novelist. The child who used to take the clock to pieces to see how it works, now does the same thing to his car to see why it doesn't. A Brussels broadcast reminded us that Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone nearly 125 years ago. A stern critic writes to say how true it is that the evil that men do lives after them. Competitors in a sports meeting event had to run a mile, walk a mile, cycle a mile, and roller-skate a mile. There is no truth in the rumour that one unscrupulous entrant also skipped a mils. STUFFY What kind of weather did you have?" "Well, I almost got engaged to the caretaker of the local museum I" HIS FANCY " This is the fifth time you have been brought before me," said the magistrate, severely. " Yes," smiled the offender. " When I like a fellow, I generally give him all my business."

HOT STUFF When the "No. 1" member of the homo team was about to throw at a local darts match, a visitor asked another member of the team if tho "man on the mark" was good. "Good?" exclaimed the member; "not 'arf 'e aint! We got 'im transferred from n pub dahn the road, and 'e cost us fourteen fahsand pahnds." WRONG DIRECTION "Sambo," said the employer, to his coloured servant, "you are an hour late this morning." "Yes, sah, I know it, sah. I wo? kicked by a mule on my way, sah," replied Sambo. "Well, that ought not to have detained you as much as an hour, you know." "Well, you sec, boss, it wouldn't have, but he kicked me do other way." INTERVENTION When Smith walked into his friend's offieo he found him sitting at his desk, looking very depressed. " Hullo, old man," said Smith, " what's up?" " Oh, just mv wife," replied tho other, sadly. " She's gone and engaged a new secretary for me." "Well, there's nothing wrong about that. Is she a blonde or brunette?" " There's plenty wrong. He's bald." LAST LAUGH « A minister and his wife were discussing two men who were in the news. "Yes," said tho minister, "I kne\v them both as boys. One was a clever, handsome fellow; the other a steady, hard worker. The clever lad was left behind in tho race, hut the hard worker —well, he died and left sixty thousand pounds to his widow. It's .1 great 1 moral." "Yes," replied his wife, with a smile, "it is. I hoard this morning tluit the clever ono is going to marry the widow."