"SMILES."

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1200, 1 March 1895, Page 26

"SMILES."

Care to our coflin adds a nail no doubt, And every laugh so merry draws one out. " Marriage," said a well-known bookie the other day on finding a grumbling wife sitting up for hirn, " marriage, my dear, is the churchyard of love." " And you men,'', replied, his wife, "are the gravediggers."

The conversation had turned upon the dexterity of the common or racecourse thief. " I was in a public-house one " began the aristocratic tout. "What, only one?" clamoured his audience. " Don't interrupt. I was in a publichouse, a well-known resort of 'the boys,' and one of them actually stole my scarfpin twice, and put it back again twice, without my being aware of anything unusual happening." Then there was a pause, which was broken by the soft, sweet tones of our own dog-man who broke in with :-—" I've always heard that these sort of people practised on a dummy I" And then the, tout guyed. Licensed Victuallers' Gazette,

It happened in the Egmont district. A well-known Hibernian sport, had a three-year-old colt, which he thought, according to breeding, ought to be a racehorse, and after several months'feeding and training, the day was appointed for a trial. An unsuccessful hack racer was the trial horse, and although unprofitable for racing purposes, he distanced the colt, who was severely punished at the finish of the trial. The " Emerald one," was sorely perplexed at the colt cutting such an inglorious figure, so after the boy who rode the colt had pulled up, the son of Erin's Isle approached the boy, and eying him up and down suspiciously, remarked, " Pwhat delayed ye \" "Oh," says the lad, "he can't gallop fast enough to keep himself warm!" "Oh, can't he? Well, see here, he'll ate grass for the rest of his life, until he gets fashter !"

At the conclusion of the second day's races at the Egmont Meeting, I (" Gipsy King ") met a sporting friend, a resident of Hawera. He was deploring the glorious uncertainty of the turf, and appeared to be satisfied that it was impossible to know what to back nowadays. "Look here," he-said, " who would ever have thought of Tell Tale (by Tim Whiffler) winning the Produce Hack Race of six furlongs ?" After I had assured him that I had fancied the animal on its performance in the Sires Produce Stakes the first day, he remarked, " Well, you didn't know as much about him. as I did. You might not believe it perhaps, but blest if Tell Tale's mother didn't help draw five cord of firewood to my place last week, and then her son to go and win 1"