Sentiment and Humour.

Otago Witness, Issue 1320, 17 March 1877, Page 19

Sentiment and Humour .

Branch Establishments. — Trees. Trance-actions. — Sleep-walking. Book Keepers. — Book borrowers. Flash Language. — Telegraph talk. Men who always go to the wall. — Paperhangers. Something that always soots. A chimney-sweep. When a man tells the naked truth, he must give bare facts. Why are troubles like babies ? Because they grow by nursing. A sneer is often the weak subterfuge off impudent ignorance. When does a ship of war become a ship of peace 1 When she drops her rancour. It is conferring a kindness to deny at once a favour which you intend to refuse. Failuke after long perseverance, is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be a failure,

.Trouble enters * every" man's" house '* 'so-oner or later. Therefore^manfully do without all that may be done without. IIIe who .does /everything at the .right > time, and in the right place, can get through a great deal in sixteen hours a day. The block of granite which is, an obstacle in the path of the weak, become* a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong. ' ' Mrs Partington desires to mow why the captain of a vessel can't keep a mema«' randum of hisanchor, instead of weighing ' it every time she leaves port. - ,m<tfn; "Is your master up ?" asked ah ■ early I ,' visitor of a nobleman's volet. "Yes a sir," replied the valet, with great inno- ' cence ; "the butler and I carried him up about 3 o'clock." ... "If you don't stop your coughing, sir," said a testy and irritable judge, " I'll fine 1 you a hundred pounds. " " I'll give your lordship two hundred if you.can stbp it for me," was the'ready reply: '' ' - ' "Are these gratuitous 1" asked an old ■ gentleman of a druggist's assistant/taking a: patent-medicine almanac from- a' pile on the counter. "No, them's Almanacs," curtly answered the matter-of-fact assistant. , >7 - - , Scene in the Grand Jury. — Foreman ■ .Gentlemen, it is not necessary to administer the oath'of secrecy to this witnesses he is a member of the press and nobody would believe anythinyhe might divulge anyhow. > >~ . ' : For Total Abstainer's.— Paterfamilias (improving' the 'shining hour) :.' "And .now, who succeeded L Richard ?" Son and Heir: " John." "Paterfamilias : c "And what did John sign 1" Son and Heir • ".The pledge \"— Punch. *'- '-' •' -' ; No expression of the human' countenance can equal the 1 look" of lonesome amazement that 'flashes over the face of the solitary oyster at finding himself scooped up in a gallon of church' sociable soup. — Burlington Hawkeye. • ' - - > , .In the hard-drinkihg days an old Scotch laird and his eldest son were riding'hoine together from ,a hospitable, gathering. ' Their ride for a while was' siierii;/ out' at last the. son said,. " Fey ther, Jewish- ye was .deid." ; The; old' man/ rather sadly replied^. "Weell} laddie, V Kae'aftea thought that of my feyttier, butM^rieve'r had the impudence to say'fr." '' ;'"; '" ff r -'-'• , j The'Honie Journal objects' tp"thp wearing of diamonds wherf travelling '"because ifc is vulgar, -It, ia;a pdsiti3n r wMch l wV J {assumed years ag6, ix 'ahd"' we'are* glac^tb' ' I say'that l nb < one > cbnnectea 7 \rith f thw'p^p'er * hksever 1 been; "gtulty of -Sueh 1 ,yulgar|ty.' : ' 'TjTe r ;have' occjasibnally 1 ' taken' a' ride '\ptft J a !; ! Jawyer, } r 'but <there "are £^ome rx 'dfeptM *to' 3 which' we r cann6t r sihlc. t^sra^OTcAsttH& 1 . i ! ' J New London has a hermit for a sensa^ 1 ! t^ori.- r . Prbfi- Millerpbf pyrotechnic 1 're! - bpwn,- is negotiating 'for h'inv'for public' 1 an f d the r contract -will be cdxti-'l -ple'te&-as ( s6oh.as 'an ; '■- to thjß number of 'acfes-df 'solitude H tb be • thrown .in>ith'the rt barga'iii. ■•• Th'e^Ker^it" claim's to ; live bn i bark ! and I 'water| excliiV sively-"Sn'd as he keepaa'dog an f d'l>uys lj milk of the-pe'ddlefs; we 1 are -inclined .tobelieve his statement.^ff&^rS'G&fie ' ' :i j CANT.^The •''hatred' of"^reteSsiph;quackery, arid untmthfulriesaW any iie- f " partmeht of life may be 'regarded as /the pivotal article— the condition of a ing or falling church"— in theevangel'.pf 1 Carlyle.' The barrenest of all mortals fis the ' sentimentalist, presenting, •* !<> a" per- ' petual lesson of despair, and type of "bed- ' rid valetudinarian impotence." - "Seritimontalism is twhf-sister to' Cant, if 1 not one and the same with it. And Cant is the very quintessence of the devil, and' a double-distilled lie, the second power of a lie, from which come all falsehoods, imbecilities, abominations. The. impostor is false and odious, but nothing is so thoroughly detestable as the half-knave, who is neither true nor false, who never in his whole existence once spoke or did a true thing, but spent his whole life 1 in "plastering together the True and the False, and therefrom manufacturing' the ' Plausible." - ■ ' • - S "The- Mule," by Martin F. T-p-p-r. From the Boston Globe :— Who have seen a mule die ? Hath the vision of man encompassed one upon his last legs, and about to keel over ? , Nixy, my boy, for the mule is immortal ! He liveth a thousand years, and then braceth up, and taketh a fresh hold for twenty thousand, Such is the vastness, the grandeur, the greatness of the animilei ,He is a big thing ! Why is he a thing thatis big ? Thou fool, go to the ant and consider ! Ho is big because he is not little, and Bigness differethirom littleness, even as the flea differeth from the barn-door. Be wise, oh man, pad out thy skull with knowledge, and learn wisdom of me, the poet of the obvious.

The new opera, based upon the old tale of " Paul and Virginia," is meeting with great success in Paris. The music is by Masse, and he introduces some exquisite little duets more especially one between Paul and his mother.

Queensland has a superficial area of six million square miles, being nearly four times the size of France, and nearly twelve times that of England and Wales.

The Tall Mall Gazette states that the Central A'rica Committee at Brussels has designated three officers of the Belgian Guides to make an exploration of Central Africa. They are to leave shortly. Dr B. KichardsoD, lecturing on health improvement in great cities, defines the essential requirements to be pure air, pure water, freedom from damp, sunlight, and equable temperature, ~ ; ' jt,,