FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 2

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

MARK TWAIN STOOD. Mark Twain in his lecturing days reached a small Eastern town, one afternoon, and went, before dinner, to a. barber’s to be shaved. ‘‘You are a stranger in the town, sir?” the' barber asked. “Yes, I’m a stranger here,” was the reply. ; “We’re having a good lecture here' to-night, sir,” said the barber. .. “A Mark Twain lecture. Are you going to it?” ' “Yes. I think I will,” said Mr Clemens. . . “Have you got your ticket yet?” thebarber asked. * “No, not yet,” said the other. “Then, sir, yon’ll have to stand.” “Dear me,” Mr Clemens exclaimed. “It seems as if I always have to stand* when X hear that man Twain lecture.” ’TWASi BUT A DREAM. Senator Dubois was lamenting the decay of oratory among American statesmen. “With only a few exceptions,,” lie said, “we have in Washington no orators worthy of the name. On this account I had to accept in silence during the last session an acid criticism from a clever woman. “ T attended a meeting of the Senate the other day,’ she said, ‘and that nightI had a- terrible dream. “ ‘What did you dream ?’ said I. “The woman smiled'. “*T dreamed,’ she said, T went, again.’ ” THE CLAWHAMMER CURE. That well known New England author . and preacher, the late Elijah Kellogg, once told the following story, anent the origin of certain “old wives’” notions:— “A country doctor in the early days of the last century was called to attend a man who was suffering from a severe attack 'of pleurisy. Wishing to blister the patient, he seized the only available Hi'ing, the family hammer, plunged it into a- ken.li> of boiling water, and after getting if hot. raised several blisters hv touching the patient all over the seat of the- pain. “Ever afterwards all the old women in that section knew that there was nothing <>qual to •[.oiled hammers’ for pleurisy. and there was a. hot dispute as to the best kind of a hammer to use hut the old fashioned clawhammer finally wort the day.”