Sentiment and Humour.

Otago Witness, Issue 1323, 7 April 1877, Page 19

Sentiment and Humour.

A good floor manager. — A broom. An oat- worthy animal. — The horse. An his-tri-on-ic place. — A clothing store. Hard money. — The money you try to borrow. No act not prompted by a sinful thought i 3 sinful. A difficult lock to pick. — One from a bald head. Praise is not valuable unless it comes from one who hag alao the gourege to condemn,

We may mend our faults as easily as cover them. The half-learned is sometimes more dangerous than the simpleton. Innocent pleasures are harmless, but the devil baits all his traps with pleasures. Without love, happiness takes ita leave, and where love .abides, care enters with uncovered head. Mias Tucker says it is with old bachelors as with old wood : it is hard to get them started, but when they do get flame, they burn prodigiously. Conclusive — Tun . An" is it me health ye'd be asking af ther 1 Sure, an' its half dead I am, coming down to work in all that rain this mornin'. Mike : Divil a bit did ye, Tim. By the hokey, I come down in part of it meself ! You can always tell whether a buzz saw is going or not by simply feeling it, but it generally takes about as long to find the ends of your fingers as it would to have gone and asked the foreman of the shop if the thing was in motion. Lady— "Well, Tibbets, and how ia your son John getting on ?" Nurse — " Oh, he be getting on first-class, thankee, mum. He told us yesterday as how he'd been and joined one o' those 'ere burial societies. So lie's provided for all right." A Pabis journal says that Baron, the singer, is of an unusual height — so tall, indeed, that when he went the other day to consult the doctor about a severe cold in the head, the physician said : "My friend, you must have got your feet wet last year." " What do you charge a quart for your milk here ?" asked a man, as he put his head in at the door of a milk-shop. " Fivepence," was - the reply. " Ain't you got any for fourpence ?" "No," said the proprietor ; " but," he added, " we can soon make you some. " A lawyer and a parson were talking about which way the wind was. The former said, "We go by the court-house vane." "And we," replied the parson, "go by the church vane. " " WelJ," said the lawyer, "in the matter of wind that is the best authority !" And the parson went home to cogitate. ' The season for donation parties has arrived. The donation party is one of the most effective of our institutions. It brings pastor and people into closer and dearer relations ; it strengthens the bonds of tenderness and love which unite them, and usually obliges the minister to walk about two miles early the next morning to exchange four quarts of beans and a pin-cushion for something to eat for breakfast. — Norwich Bulletin. An up-town man and his wife agreed, | recently to learn, a verse of Scripture every evening and report it to each other, for mutual improvement. The first night, however, her quotation happened to be, "Am I not thy ruler ?" and his was to the effect that he'd be hanged if she was ; and the only result of the plan so far has been that he has taken, to drink, and exhibits a willingness to" sleep in the wood-shed at nights. — Norwich Bulletin. "W-t-Tj d° y° u know why you are like a donkey?" "Like a donkey!" echoed, W— — -, opening his eyes wide. " No, I don't." "Do you give it up 1" "I do.". "Because your better half ia stubbornness herself. " ' ' That's not bad. Ha ! ha ! I'll give that to my wife when I get home." "Mrs W ," he asked, as he sat down to supper, "do you know why, lam like a donkey ?" He waited a moment expecting his wife to give it up. But she didn't. She looked at him somewhat commiseratingly as she answered : " I suppose because you were born so." In a Government like ours each individual must^ think of the welfare of the State, as well as of the welfare of his own family, and therefore of the children of others as well as his own. It becomes, then, a momentous question whether the children in our schools are educated in reference to themselves and their private interests only, or with a regard to the great social duties and. prerogatives that await them in after life. Are they so educated that when they grow up they will make better Christians, or only grander savages? for, however loftily the intellect of man may have been gifted, hojv skilfully'it may have been trained, if it be not guided by a sense of justice, a love of mankind, and a devotion to duty, its possessor is only a more splendid, as he is also a more dangerous barbarian. — Horace Mann. Carlyle has been accused of a grim and unsavory cynicism, of a savage contempt for human sympathies, of a defiance of the decent and becoming forms which environ the social life of the age ; but he need only be studied to be recognised as a man of profound religious ideas, of an intense love of truth and Nature, and a wise and tender spirit of humanity. His quickening words have sunk deep even in the unreceptive soil of the English mind, and in America have been crowned with a ripe and fragrant harvest. With the exception of Mr Emerson, and possibly Dr. Charming, no writer has exerted a more gracious influence on the generation which is now passing from the stage, and making room for the action of othor lights and new developments of thought. Whatever colouring may be taken in the progresa of the future, Mr Carlyle has done a noble work in preparing for the advent of a better day. In an age of devotion to commonplace, material interests, he has summoned the soul to loftier flights. He has inspired the literature of his land with fresh courage,energy, originality, opening new fields of thought in the productions of genius ia other countries, and enriching the mother tongue with unaccustomed forma of expression and illustration of hi 3 own.-^ N.T. Tribune, ' '