Varieties.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 40, 28 October 1871, Page 17

Varieties.

A Handy Tune— 4 Fortune.’ It is not common metre.

A carpenter is seldom handsomer than his wife, because he is a deal planer. A coquette is said to be a perfect incarnation of Cupid, because she keeps her beau in a quiver. If you are asked to take an egg and won’t, is that an-egg-ative reply ? Some lawyers can’t sleep. They lie on one side and turn over and lie on the other. .

It is a queer woman who asks no questions, but the woman who does is the querist. Women do not talk more than men. They’re listened to more, that is all.

Women as telegraph operators have proved a great success. They send the electric spark right through a fellow. An hotel man, who is troubled with loafers coming in and monopolising his morning papers all day, has put up a sign 4 Q-entlemen learning to spell will please take yesterday’s paper.’ Eating and Feeding. —Farmer—Well, my man, and how much do you want a day ? Irish Laborer —Shillin’ a day, and you ate me, or eighteen pence a day and I ate mypelf. GtrliS ‘Parsed.’ —‘Girls’ is a particular noun, of the lovely gender, lively person, and double number, kissing mood, in the immediate tense, and in the expectation case to matrimony, according to the general rule. Flattery. —‘ You flatter me, said a thin exquisite the other day to a young lady who was praising the beauties of his moustache. ‘ For Heaven’s sake, ma’am,’ interposed an old skipper, ‘ don’t make that monkey any flatter than he is !’

A Pennsylvania Dutchman, who had contributed liberally towards building a church, was afterwards solicited to pay something more towards furnishing it with a lightening rod. ‘ No,’ said he, * I pay fifty tollar to help build a church for the Lord ; and now, if he ohoso too tonder on it and knock it town, he do it at his own risk.’

A Western paper tells the story of a man who, having gone into a heavy purchase of pork on a falling market, was overheard praying in the following style: ‘ O Lord, for my sake, just advance hogs one cent per hundred, and I won’t pay four dollars per hundred for any more. Amen.’ ‘ Thomas, I have always placed the greatest confidence in you. Now tell me, Thomas, how is it that my butcher’s bill is so large, and that I have always such bad dinners ?’ * Really, sir, I don’t know: for I’m sure we never have anything nice in the kitchen that we don’t send some of it up in the parlor.’ Two young Virginians desperately in love with the same young lady had a fierce fight with riding whips and knives as they were riding home with her on horseback from church on Sunday. One of them received an ugly cut the whole length of his face.

A little vagrant boy brought up in a London police court, in reply to questions, said; * I

don’t live nowhere. I ain’t got no friends. I sleep at night under the showboard agin the Lyceum Theayter, Sometimes I gits under other boards.’

A correspondent, under the head * strange,’ asks how it is that in all advertisements for culinary assistance 4 plain cooks’ are only required, and pretty ones never sought. He seems to forget that advertisements for servants come not from the gentleman but from the lady of the house.

A Maryland paper improves upon the usual style of death notices by recording that an infant was ‘ born into the order of fallen nature, December 30th, 1869 j into the supernatural sphere of redeeming grace, April 27,1870, arid into the kingdom of life everlasting, July sth, 1871.’

A few weeks ago a baby was taken into a church to be baptized, and his little brother was present during that rite. On the following Sunday, when the baby was undergoing his ablutions and dressing, the little brother asked mamma if she intended to carry Willie to be christened. ‘ Why, no,’ replied his mother; 4 don’t you know, my son, that people are not baptized twice ?’ ‘ What,’ returned the young reasoner, with the utmost astonishment in liis earnest face, ‘ not if it don’t take the first time ?’

Two well-dressed and fine-looking ladies instantly dislocated their necks while passing each other, in trying to discover what each other had on, lb was cloudy ; the speed at which they were moving, and the delicate shade of the dry goods worn by each, operated against them, and a sudden tack with all sail set against a stiff breeze, fetched them up too short, and they pprished. A remarkable family lives in Dallas County, Arkansas. The father is 108 years old, the mother 106, and the two are the parents of twenty-nine children —fifteen boys and fourteen girls. A New Hampshire editor, who has been keeping a record of big beets, announces at last 4 the beet that beat the beet that beat the other beer, is now beaten by a beet that beats all the beets, whether the original beet, the beet that beat the beet, or the beet that beat the beet that beat the beet. A descent from the sublime to the ridiculous may sometimes be effected by the substitution of but a few words. For instance, take the beautiful lines :

4 You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.’

And read it thus : 4 You may break, you may shatter the vase if you choose to, But the scent of the roses will hang where it used to.’