Odds and Ends.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 243, 15 July 1876, Page 3

Odds and Ends.

Played Out. —A retired actor. Very Try-fling Affairs. —Wrestling matches. The best luminary for an impetuous individual.— A rush light. .• ~'... The right sort of thing to have during hot weather. —A cool thousand or two. Lost, a new silk umbrella, belonging to a gentleman with a curiously-carved ivory head. Query.—Can a man who has been fined by the magistrates again and again be considered a refined man? ™, j For Husbands. —There are few domestic wrongs inflicted upon the wife by her husband that a sealskin jacket won't heal. A victim of circumstances in Baton Kouge, La., is in prison, because, "while whipping his wife, he accidently broke her neck." A negro was scalded to death from a boiler explosion, and on his tombstone they chiselled deeply : '* Sacred to the memory of our 'steamed friend." There is no special style in engraving engagement rings. A spider's web with a fly in it is a pretty A. Californian man recently married his aunt, because he thought his old grandmother would make an*affectionate mother-in law. Many a man saves his life by not fearing to lose it, and many a man loses his life by being overanxious to save it. ' How do you define "black as your hat?" said a schoolmaster to one of his pupils. " Darkness that may be felt," replied the youthful wit. The word d-e-b-t is composed of the initials "dun every body twice." C-r-e-d-i-t is formed of the initial letters of " call regularly every day ; I'll trust." A little child gazing upon an old picture of his mother, taken in a low dress, remarked, "Mamma, darling, yoa was mos'ready for bed when yat picter was taken." The following is the very candid declaration of the San Francisco Neivs Letter : Next week our Itinerant Liar will visit Cloverdale, Ukiah, Mendocino and Point Arenas. A darrey left in charge of a telegraph-office while the operator went to dinner, heard some one " call" over the wires, and began shouting at the instrument, " De operator isn't yer ! " The noise ceased. In Nevada, when a building falls and kills two or three people, the jury first hunt up the contractor and hang him, and then bring in a verdict that nobody is to blame but the contractor, who cannot be found. A joke has been attributed to one of the Cabinet at the expense of a brother member, whom he described, on account of the "little affairs" which have happened in his department, as Mr. Casualty "Ward Hunt. Reassuring.—" What arrangements have you for extinguishing fire?" said Mr. Timidity to the landlord of a giant hotel where he proposed to spend the night. " There's a jug of water in every room, sir," responded Boniface. An ingenious wife tells her oppressed sister how to come it over the tyrant man. " When I want a nice snug day all to myself," she says. "I'll tell George dear mother is coming, and then I see nothing of him until one in the morning." Try it. An Irish drummer, who now and then indulged in a noggin of right good poteen, was accosted by the reviewing general— " What makes your nose so red;" V Plase yer honor," replied Pat, " I always blush when I speak to a general officer." Reports come from Coldwater, Mich., that a party of ladies there recently dressed themselves to represent the main characters in the Brooklyn Church scandal, having" previously sent out invitations to their friends to call and see the show.

George Eliot says that "girls are delicate vessels in which is borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affection ; " and some unhappy Benedict adds that girls are delicate vessels which require a small fortune every season to keep them in sails. "What in the world induces Mrs to wear so many puffs and flounces," said a lady at a ball, as the person referred to swept past, a billowy vision of millinery. "Why," was the reply, " shs has indulged so much in fashionable dissipation that she has the "delirium trimmings." Misplaced Endearment. —It is to be hoped that most collectors and purchasers of artistic treasures are better informed than the lady, who, on one occasion, pointing to an Apollo, asked her husband, "Whom is that a statue of ?" " Tile Apollo Belvidere," was the reply. " Law, how affectionate yovi are, my love ! And now, darling, who was Apollo Belvy?" Scissors ! —A Japanese young lady at school in New York has written to the Japan Gazette, suggesting certain reforms of a spiritual, material, financial, and social kind, which, if adopted, will change the entire character of Japanese civilisation. The comprehensive measures she recommends are, first, the conversion of the whole population to Christianity ; secondly, an increased importation of scissors ; thirdly, a restriction of taxation ; and, fourthly, the introduction of the American custom of wedding breakfasts. A Musical Critic. —A Glasgow paper says that in one of the city police courts the other day occurred the following little dialogue, which created great laughter. Witness, telling about a crowd by whom he had been insulted, was asked by the baillie, "Were they acting in concert ?" A pause. The _ fiscal: " Speak out, man. AVere the prisoners acting in concert ?" Witness (with a strong Hibernian accent): " Yer honor, they were not playing any music whin I was there, but " The rest of the sentence was lost in the roar of laughter which followed. Anecdote of Bret Harte.—Bret Harte was lecturing in Pennsylvania a short time ago. At one of his appointments he felt very much depressed. It is a peculiarity of humorists, we are told, to be unaccountably melancholy and gloomy at times. Harte was in this mood now. One of the commitee went to the back of the scenes to see him, and the depressed humorist welcomed him as a gleam of unusual good sunshine. They shook hands Harte very earnestly, and the committeeman decorously. "Mr Harte," he said gravely, "you will find this an un usually healthy city." " Ah!" said the pleasant humorist. "Yes. The death-rate is only one a day." At this juncture Harte took the committeeman by the arm, and hurridly asked: "Is he dead?" "Dead!" ejaculated the committeeman. " Who dead ?" " Why, the man for to-day," was the grave reply. The committeeman stared with all his might into the immoveable face of the lecturer. " Isn't there a clerk here, or registrar, or coroner, or something like that, of whom you could find out whether a man for this day has died ?" " Why, yes, I suppose so," slowly replied the committeeman. " Would you be so good then as to find out, and before I commence the lecture if possible, whether that man is dead ? If he is dead, then I am all right, for I am to leave the city early to-morrow morning ; but if he isn't dead I cannot help but feel uneasy about myself, and I am not well to-night." The kindhearted committeeman immediately hurried away to get the information. When in his room at the hotel that night a servant told him that a gentleman wished him to step down-stairs in the hall, as he wanted to see him. Mr. Harte went down, and there met the committeeman. "I am sorry, Mr. Harte, to disturb you," he said, "but I could not get that information earlier. It is all right. The death-rate I spoke of wis merely the average."