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Otago Witness, Issue 899, 20 February 1869, Page 16

Varieties.

"Why is a badly- conducted hotel like a fiddle ? — Because it is a vile inn. The Best Board of Health.— A light diet. "I AM going to draw this beau into a knot," aa the lady said at the hymeneal altar. A country paper wants to know if a man with wooden legs can be considered a foot passenger. Why do cabmen prefer tall ladies to short ones ? — Because the higher the fair the better ! they like it. It was a well-meant but novel compliment from a parishioner, who declared to her minister she did not know which most to admire— his sermon or his wife's new di'ess. " There's sweet music in dreams," said an old gentleman. " Yes, there may be," said his wife : " but I hear nothing of it except a snore." When a man and woman are made one by a clergyman, the question is, which is the one? Sometimes there is a long struggle between them before this matter is finally settled. It has been thought that people are degenerating because they don't live as long as in the days of Methuselah. But the fact is, provisions are so high that nobody can afford to live very long at the current prices. Old Mra Darnley is a pattern of household economy. She says she has made a pair of stockmgs last her fifteen years, by only knitting new feet to them every winter, and. new legs to them every other winter. A young lady, who prided herself on her geography, seeing a candle aslant, remarked that it reminded her of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. "Yes," responded a wag, "with this difference : that is a tower in Italy, while this is a tower in grease." The effect of advertising in the newspapers is thus related by an American journal :— " A lady advertised laat week for a stray cow, and the cow came home next day, pulled down the cow-pen fence, bellowed till the milkmaid came, and then kept off her own calf till she was milked," Augustus, on reading an account of the murder of a woman, declared that a man I who would kill a woman must be a vulgar fiend. ''Why, Gus," exclaimed his sister, ' ' I thought you prided yourself on being a lady-killer ever since your moustache took root !'' Axtgustus was silent. Two girls, driving in a buggy on a plank road, were stopped and asked for the toll. " How much is it ?" " For a man and horse," replied the gatekeeper, "tha charge is fifty cents." " Well, then, git out of the way, for we are two gals and a mare." And away they went, leaving the man in mute astonishment. Exchange is no Robbery. — Mistress (who will be constantly in the kitchen) : "Why, cook, I've looked everywhere for you downstairs. How dare you be sitting her© ?" Cook (who is comfortably seated in the drawing-room) : " Well, you see, mum, as you prefers taking my place in the kitchen. I've taken yours here." Quaker Shrewdness.— A Quaker brsker in New. York having had a bag of golden eagles (coins) stolen from his counter while he stepped into his back room for a moment, never mentioned the loss to anybody, but quietly bided his time. Seyeral months afterwards, a neighbor being in his office, oareleßsly asked, "Have you ever h-srd anything about that b&g of eagles that you lost?" "Ah, John !" exclaimed the Quaker, " thou art the thief, or thou could st not have known anything about it !" The shrewd old Quaker was right, and the gold was restored withjtaterest.