Famous Jokes.

Otago Witness, Issue 1875, 28 October 1887, Page 35

Famous Jokes.

George Colman, the younger, being askeel if he knew Theodore Hook, replied, " Certainly ; Hook and eye are old associates."

During the last illness of Column, the doctor, being late in an appointment, apologised to his patient, saying that he had been called in to see a man who had fallen down a well, " Did he kiok the bucket, doctor I " groaned out poor George. Theodore Hook, on presenting himself for matriculation at Oxford, was asked, aocording to the form at that time in vogue, whether he was willing to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. He replied with alaccrity: " Certainly ; forty, if you please."

An illiterate vendor of beer wrote over his door at Harrowgate, "Bear sold hero." "He spells the word quite correctly," said Theo* dore Hook, " if ho means to apprise us that the article is his own bruin."

ftfafchews being asked what he was going to do with his son (the young man's profession \\ r as to he that of an architect), "Why," answered the comedian, 'Wieis going to draw houses like his father."

A friend attending on Mathews in his last illness found that ho hnd given him some ink from a phial in mistake for his medicine. On discovering the error he exclaimed : " Good heavens, Mathews, I have given you ink I" "Never mind, my dear boy — never mind ! " said Mathews, faintly, " I'll swallow a little piece of blotting-paper."

On the production of an opera, "The Haunted Tower," by Cobb, a genial friend said to the author : " What a misnomer to call your opera ' The Haunted Tower ! ' Why, there is no spirit in it from beginning to end."

A lady having put to Canning the silly question, " Why have they made the spaces in the iron gate at Spring Gardens so narrow 1 " he replied : " Oh, ma'am, bocanse suchrery fat people used to go through." (A reply concerning which Tom Moore remarked that " the person who does not relish it can have no perception of wit.")

Sir Robert Peel, speaking of Lord Eldon, remarked that '■ c'en his failings leaned to virtue's side " ; upon which it was observed that his lordship's failings resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which, in spite of its long inclination, had never yet gone over. Sydney Smith said of Macaulay : "Heis a book in breeches. He is certainly more agreeable since his return from India. His enemies have said before (though I never did so) that he talked rather too much ; but now he has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful." Sydney Smith said at another time of Macaulay that "he not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop." Again, " I wish 1 were as sure of any one thing as Macaulay is of everything."