Odds and Ends.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 387, 12 July 1879, Page 3

Odds and Ends.

An Oakland girl recently hired her mouth out hs a public park. It has six achers in it. We suppose when a woman has all the pin money she wants, she has obtained the pin nickle of her happiness. A man never looks so helpless and insignificant as when standing around in a dry goods store waiting for his wife to get through trading. WHY"can it not be consideied infia dig to serve as a hireling?—Give it up? Why, because it surely can't b« said that any one is lowered by being hired. If some women will attempt to wash twenty babies in twenty quarter hours, or make fifty shirts in fifty hours the emulation craze may amount to soine"thing. " What is the ' Lady of Lyons ?' asked Laura, looking up from her book. " Lioness, of course, you goose." replied Tom, with an expression of airy loftiness and superior wisdom. " After the Opera is Over" was the song 1 an irate wife at Baldwin's the other night, hummed in the ear of her lord and master, whom she caught flirting with a pretty girl who sat next him. " How shall we train our girls ?" asks an exchange. Train 'em with about twenty-two yards of black silk, if you want to please your girls. A silk velvet tr un would also make 'em hippy. A new style of stocking is ca led the Voltaire. Sock-rates would have been a better name, as we never did admire a stocking with a taire at the end of it.

One tor Him. —" Thank heaven," saida tormented passenger. " there are no newsboys in heaven." "No replied the newsboy, " but what comfort would you find in that?" The man didn't say, and everybody else looked pleased. A little girl, reading the " History of England" with her mother, and coming to the statement that Henry I. never laughed after tile death of his son, looked up and said, " What did he do when he wss tickled." Pomps and "Vanities. —The mayor of a country town was questioning the boys at a ragged school, and he asked them what were the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. He asked them one by one, but they could not tell him. At last a little boy near the bottom said, " I know, sir. The mayor and corporation gong to church, sir." A pew days ago, at the breakfast table his mother said she dreamed a man had shot her in the arm, and then she woke up. Master five-year-old listened with becoming gravity until the story was done, and then he said : " It's a pity, mamma, you didn't keep on sleeping. You'd have hung that man before you woke up." The Age of Steam.—A certain clergyman was exhorting those who had troubled consciences to be sure and call on their pastor for gui lance. Said he, " To show you, my brethren, the blessed results of these visits to your pastor, I will state to you that only yesterday a gentleman of wealth called upoH me for counsel and instruction ; and n"w to-day he sits among us a happy husband and father and a Christian." A young lady in the audience whispered $0 a matron, *• Wasn't that quick work ?"

The length of a lady's train should never be under a foot.

The fashion reporter who wrote, with reference to a belle, " Her feet were encased in shoes that might be taken for fairy boots," tied his wardrobe up in a handkerchief and left for parts unknown when it appeared next morning : " Her feet were encased in shoes that might be taken for ferry-boats." The following answer was recently given to an examiner at an examination : " What do you know of the patriarchal Adam ?' " Ho was the father of Lot, and had two wives, Hishmalc and t'other Haygur ; one became a pillar of salt in the daytime and the other a pillow of fire by night." An Infamous Deception.—A facetious brakeman on the Central Pacific Ralroad cried out as the train was about to enter a tunnel, "This is one mile long, and the train will be four minutes passing through it." The train dashed through into daylight again in four seconds, and the scene within the car was a study for a painter. Seven young ladies were closely pressed by soven pair of masculine arms ; 14 pairs of lips were glued together, and two dozen whiskey flasks flashed in the air. Cuttings prom "Punch." —Melting ! Stout chairman (who feels the fire close at -his back rather oppressive): " Waiter, I asked you to bring me a screen." Waiter: " Master's very sorry, sir, but we ain't go no screen !" Stout chairman : " Then, for goodness' sake, tell the cook to send up the drippingpan, and put it under ine, quick !"—Upsetting the balance : Mr. Bull: " Balance all right, I hope ?" Bank manager: "It was, sir. But there's that cheque of Mr- Ketchwayo's, you know " ! !—A choice of evils : Mamma : " Now, Arthur, be a good boy, and take your medicine, or mamma will be very angry I" Arthur (after mature deliberation) :" I would rather mamma '■ as very angry !"—Satisfactory: Bumptious old geut (in a directoral tone): " Ah, guard—what are we—ah—waiting for?" Guard (with unconcern) : " Waiting for the train to go on, sir !" LOld gent retires.] —Why are Positivist dogmas like absolute alcohol ? Because they are above proof. Moral Courage.—Have the courage to discharge a debt while you have the money in your pocket. To do without that which you do not need, however much you may admire it. To speak your mind when it is necessary that you should do so, and to hold your tongue when it is better that you should be silent. To speak to a poor friend in a threadbare coat, even in the street, and when a rich one is nigh. The effort is less than many take it to be, and the act is worthy a king. To face a difficulty, lest it kick you harder than you bargain for. Difficulties, like thieves, often dis ippear at a glance. To leave a convivial party at a proper hour for so doing, however great the sacrifice : and to stay away from one, upon the slightest grounds for objection, however great the temptation to go. To dance with ugly people if you dance at all; and to decline dancing if you dislike the performance or cannot accomplish it to your satisfaction. To tell a man why you will not lend him money ; he will respect you more than if you tell him you cannot. To cm. the most agreeable acquaintance you possess,when he convinces you that he lacks principle. " A friend should bear with a friend's infirmities," not his vices. To wear your old garments till you can pay for new one 3. To pass the bottle without filling your glass, when you have reasons for so doing ; and to laugh at those who urge you to the contrary. To wear thick boots in winter, and to insist upon your wife and daughters doing the like. To decline playing at cards for money, when " money is an object," or to cease v laying when your losses amount to as much as you can afford to lose. Lastly, have the courage to prefer propriety to fashion ; one is but the abuse of the other. A Clever Imposture.—" Visitors to Naples during the past season must frequently have noticed on the Via Toledo—one of the finest and most frequented streets—an old woman, bent under the weight of years, clad in wretched mourning, creeping past the line of shops, like a moving bas-relief, and sometimes halting at a corner. She wore a tattered bonnet on her head, a thick black veil over her features, and a pair of ragged gloves on her fingers. She never spoke, she never put out her hand for charity, but took with a kind of growl whatever small coin the passengers might vouchsafe her. That old woman's gains were 20f. per diem ; but who was she? No one could tell, and she never answered questions. She seemed a spectre in the throng of Vanity Fair—an uncomfortable intruder whom the butterflies of fa hion were only too glad to pay and get rid of. The other day acou le of Municipal Guards laid hands on her, and bundling her into a cab, took her off to the Mendicant's House. One of the female attendants stripped her, when suddenly, from the filthy, fetid, envelope of rags, emerged, Cinderella-like, a lu3ty youug woman, considerably on this side of thirty, freshcolored, fat, and prepossessing. Her make-up was a marvel of effect. Her curved spine was " arranged" with a cord which passed round her neck, and was fastened at the knee. Her hump was manufactured from a ball of rags ; her wrinkled and dirty white face was managed with imitation parchment. On inquiry it was found that this young woman was of good family, and that the gains she so cleverly earned wiiM brought regularly home to her parents, who kept a night-heuse where scenes of the most unhallowed revelry were kept up till all hours of the morning. A Diplomat.—A very tall man, with sandy chin whiskers, entei-ed the door. The car was full, and the only seat unoccupied by two persons was filled with a valise, a bundle, a shawll, and a thin woman of thirty-five, with the latest shade of red hair, and false teeth. The man with the sandy whiskers, feeling a sympathetic bond drawing him towards the woman's red hair, touched her on the shoulder and said, "Is this seat engaged?" "Yes, it is," snapped the woman, swell'ng up in the seat that the man might observe no possible room. '' Ah !" murmured the man, in a pleasant tone. Then he went and stood by the stove and mused for awhile. Presently he returned to the scene of his rebuff, and, leaning on the arm of the seat, said softly, " I beg your pardon, madam, but as I was standing by the stove your features struck me familiarly. Did you ever attend a presidential reception at Washington ?" " No, I nevei did," replied thewoman, but in a milder voice than she had at first assumed. " Then you will please pardon me," said tlie man with an apslogetic air ; " the mistake was occasioned by the close resemblance to a young lady from Philadelphia who made her dibut that season, whom I had the pleasure of meeting. She was considered the belle of the season." " No—l never was in Washington," remarked the woman, in a moliified tone. "It is strange how much you resemble the youug lady in question," pursued the man. "The hair is the same golden hue, and while her features m>:y not have been so clear-cut and Grecian in their —there, excuse me I am annoying," and the tall man started away. " Don't hurry," said the woman, pleasantly. " There doesn't appear to be many empty seats; won't you sit here?" And she picked up her num rous baggage. The man with the sandy whiskers didn't know, but finally accepted the invitation, and in an incredibly brief s;jace of time had the valise and bundle in the rack above, the sh .wl tucked around the window to exclude the draught, and was rogalling the red-headed woman with a choice collection of anecdotes, that kept her laughing till the passengers could see the gums of her false teeth.