Varieties.

Otago Witness, Issue 838, 20 December 1867, Page 14

Varieties.

What part of speech is kissing ? — A conjunction. Why is a quack like a locomotive engine ?' — Because he cannut go on without puffing. Is becoming the lion of a party, does a man necessarily make a beast of himself ? A Hich Design. — A pattern formed in cheques. " Come out here, and I'll lick the whole on you," as the boy said when he saw a jar full of sugar sticks in the shop window. When a reformed drunkard confines himself to pale ale, can that be called bitter repentance ? Comparative Ornithology. — An old woman may be no chicken, but it does not follow that a young lady is one. Instead of being a chicken she may be a goose. "At length," said an untortunate man who had been ruined by vexatious lawsuits, "at length I have found happiness, for I ana reduced to Necessity, and that is the only thing I know of which has no law.'' A. g*nius, who deserves to be ranked as a public benefactor, has discovered a process for converting old topers into cartridge boxes. Their superiority for this purpose consists in their beiug always dry. A discontented man was perpetually in the habit of reminding his second rib what an excellent manager his first wife was. Out of all patience, she one day comforted him with the remark, that no one regretted her death more than she did. A gipsy going through a village on a rainy day in a pair of torn boots, was accosted by a passer-by, who suggested that his boot 3 were much too bad for such weather, "You are mistaken, sir," said the gipsy, proudly ; "it is the weather that is too bad for my boots." A good joke is told of the 93rd Highland Regiment at the battle of Balaklava. When the Russians came with a flag of truce th* next day, they asked what the people with the petticoats were, and a wag replied that they were the wives of the men who rode on the grey horses (the Scots Greys). At the Newcastle Quarter Sessions a question arose whether the building occupied by a Scotch draper was a shoo, or simply a house. The Recorder asked him, by way of test, "If I were to walk in, and ask you for » yard of silk, would you sell it me ?" The canny Scot replied, "That would depend upon whether I thought I could trust ye." When the Press ought to Help the Government. — It was a jocular saying of a Minister now no more, when the editor of a certain paper affirmed that he always supported the Government when he thought it in the right, "We don't want to be supported when we are in the right : what we want is some support when we are in the wrong " A Duelling Anecdote. — Two Spanish officers met to fight a duel, outside the gate* of Bilboa, after the seconds had failed to reconcile the belligerents. "We wish tcr fight — to fight to the death," they replied to the representations of their companions. At this moment, a poor fellow, looking like the ghost of Romeo's apothecary, approached theseconds, and in a lamentable voice said,. "Gentlemen, I am a poor artizan, with a. large family, and would " "My good man, don't trouble us now," cried one of the officers, " don't you see that my friends aregoing to engage each other ? We are not in a Christian humor." "Tt is not alms I ask for, " said the man ; "1 am & poor carpenter, with eight children, and my wife is ill ; and,, having heard that those gentlemen were about to kill each other, I thought of askingyou to let me make the coffins." At these words the individuals abont to commence the combat burst into a loud fit of laughter, and simultaneously throwing down their swords, shook hands with each other, andt walked away. WAMTED TO KNOW. The address of the fire when it goes out. Whether a treble singer does three times the work, or is paid three times as much as another. Whether a lawyer ever fainted under the burden of cdnveying a house. How many beams tho moon rests upon-, who had the contract for supplying them, and what wood they are made of