Odds and Ends.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 221, 4 December 1875, Page 3

Odds and Ends.

Sure to produce short crops —The barber’s shears. Grave sentiments are best expressed on tomb stones.

Why is the snn like a good loaf?—Because it's light when it rises. A mas who spits in a railroad car cannot expec-to-rate as a gentleman.— Boston Traveller.

An artist of the pencil at Fort Edward, by the name of Chimney, is said to draw well. One who can always get bread when he kneads it —A baker.

Speaking of the round world, much can be said on both sides. When is a little girl’s arm like an animal ? When it is a little bear (bare).

Why is a lady at a ball like an arrow? —Because she can’t go off without a beau, and is in a quiver till she gets one.

Change of Name (for the scene of the late fatal railway collision near Bradford). —For “ Ivildwick" road “ Killed-quick” Station. Punch. Accomplishments are on the increase. Nowadays children write, all men play, and most women paint.— Horne!. German Silver. Royalty has taken quite a fancy to Margate of late. It is rumoured, however, that the recent visit was merely a Teck-nickel affair. —lbid.

A Chicago man closed his testimony in his action for divorce from his wife as follows I don’t want to say anything again the woman, judge, but I wish you could live with her a little while.” A phonographer, taking down one of Dr. Mary Walker’s lectures, made the well-known legend, “ Honi soit qui mal y pense,” read, “Only see how Mary pants ! ”

A young man who used to have a brazen countenance was taken to Bow-street the other day, on a charge of embezzlement. When he appeared in the dock his countenance was changed to one of (lilt \—Judy. The China Mania.— Mr. Wade, the British Am bassador in China, is having a prolonged bicker with the Chinese Government. England is not likely to rush into war, but unless the complexion of affairs at Pekin bo speedily altered, she will have to Wade into it. — Fun.

Chicago policemen should be furnished with telescopes. When one of them is off duty and pursuing his old profession of house-breaking, it is mighty unhandy for him to have one of his partners in the force fire at him by mistake, thinking him one of the common herd of burglars. —Milwaukee Nevis. It was midnight when Mr. Berger of Macon Ga., discovered a colored preacher in his stable untying a horse, and the preacher only observed, “ J ess what I said all the time, Mistah Berger ; your hoss is bay, sure enuff, and dat ’spntc between me an’ Brudder Jackson is settled.”

A lady who ivas in the habit of spending much of her time in the society of her neighbors happened one day to be taken suddenly ill, and sent her husband in great haste for the physician. The husband ran a few yards, but soon returned, exclaimed, “My dear, where shall I find you when I get back?” Tiie Rente et Gazette Musicale says that its readers will learn, not without surprise, that the Sultan of Zanzibar is a clever pianist. At a recent visit to a music shop in Paris, where he went to purchase a piano, his Highness caused considerable astonishment by sitting down to a piano, and performing like a true virtuoso a fantasia by Tlialberg. It is contemplated, if report may be believed, to add to all trains which now contain smoking carriages a “ swearing carriage,” whore persons who are addicted to this unpleasant habit may indulge it at their own sweet will. By the way, if certain companies could manage to keep a little hotter time with their trains, a portion of tlie outlay necessary for this purpose might be saved. Verb. sap. “ I declare, Joseph,” sighed a Detroit mother, as she put a patch on young Joseph’s pants, “ they must have awful hard seats in school. This is the fourth time I’ve had to patch these pants in two weeks-” “They have mother,” ho promptly replied ; “just tears a boy all to pieces” The old lady ought t > see liim riding down hill on a shingle, with the American flag sticking up alongside his ear. —Detroit Press.

A Milwaukee belle, attending a theatre recently, complained in one of the scenes that the light was too dim to show the acting properly. “ Won't you try this glass?” asked the escort, handing her his lorgnette. Hastily covering the suspicious-looking object with a handkerchief, she placed it to her lips, took a long pull, and handed it back in disgust saying, ‘ ‘ Why, there ain t a drop in it I ” What is the difference between the Emperor William’s chronometer and a bill-poster?—One is Bill’s ticker and the other a bill-sticker. ’Tis naught when woman humbugs man, For that’s the good old style ; But, oh, man’s confidence in man Makes countless thousands smile. When the Roman wife has finished bruising her husband's head with the fragment of a brass Jupiter, she forthwith begins to feel the sentimental influence of those “ soft Italian skies,” and, seizing her mandolin, sits down and sings to him—- “ O cast that shadow from thy brow.” Mrs. Milliss has a very fidgety boy named Sam. He don’t mean wrong, but lie can’t help it. Nature turned him out with too much quicksilver in his blood. Airs. Milliss took Sam to church last Sunday, and was ushered into a pew in front of a nervous old lady who had evidently come there to worship. As Sam’s head didn’t reacli above the back of the seat, he felt the security of his situation and began to wobble about as usual. The old lady endured it for some time with Spartan fortitude, but when Sam, having piled up three hymn books, a New Testament,’ two catechisms, and and old edition of Fox's Martyrs, accidentally spilled them off tiie seat, she leaned over to Airs. Alilliss and said: “ What I wisli to remark, ma’am, is, that if that boy of yourn’s quite well, lie ought to know better, and if he’s got worms, church ain’t no place for him.” It made Airs. Alilliss’ patrician blood boil, but it sobered Sam.— Brooklyn Argus. Caught in the act of stealing a coat from a hall, a well-dressed thief was brought before a Wicklow magistrate. “ You look the sneaking thief you are all over,” said the indignant magistrate. “Why, anyone would think, to look at you, that you were unused to this course of life, when I know you have been brought up before me a dozen times before for the same offence.” Here the officer whispered to the magistrate that he was addressing the wrong man, and that the thief was the man sitting behind the gentleman. This aroused the magistrate to a sense of ludicrous mistake, and he rose to his feet and exclaimed, “ you needn't think I don’t know you, if you do hide behind that gentleman, for I should know you among a hundred. All that I have said was intended for you. Constable, take him away ! ”

There lives a widow out West who never did anything useful until after her husband died, and left her half a dozen children to take care of. She thought a great deal of her husband, but he did not leave her enough substance to buy him a gravestone, and this fact set her to work. She determined that the poor man s grave should have a respectable mark. So she got a marble slab, and went to work on it, making a gravestone for the departed. Thus she began to carve out her fortune. Shu finished the work, and learned the trade of a stone-cutter at the same time. She soon did some other marble work, and offered it for sale. It proved acceptable, and site was given a permanent place in a marble-yard, and is making regular artist s wages, and keeping her family in good style. Sometimes a husband does turn out a benefit to a woman though she may not realise his use until she loses him.

Tiie Actors Advantage.— lt is noticeable that people generally overrate a fine actor's genius and underrate his trained skill. They are apt to credit him with a power of intellectual conception an 1 poetic creation to which he has really a very slight claim, and fail to recognise all the difficulties which his artistic training lias enabled him to master. The ordinary spectator is moved, but is incapable of discriminating the sources of his emotion ; he identifies the actor with the character, and assigns to the actor's genius the effect mainly due to the dramatist. Nor is this illusion dispelled when, on some other occasion, this

same actor leaves him quite unmoved by representations of slmlliar passions not rendered msthetically truthful by the dramatist. Thousands have been moved by performers in Hamlet, whose acting in other characters has excitod indifference or contempt, and the fact that no actor has boon known to utterly fail in Hamlet, while failures in Shylook and Othello are numerous, is very instructive. I remember that when the German company played “ Faust” at the St. James Theatre, the sudden illness of the tragedian who was to have played Mephistophilcs caused the part to bo handed over to a fourth-rate member of tho troupe who knew the part ; yet, although the performance was a very poor example of the art, tho interest excited by this character was so great that the public and the critics were delighted. It is the incalculable advantage of the actor that lie stands in the suffused light of emotion kindled by the author. He speaks the great thoughts of an impassioned mind! and is rewarded, as tho bearer of glad tidings is rewarded, though he may have had nothing to do with the facts which he narrates.