JOSH BILLINGS' PHILOSOPHY,

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11738, 3 February 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

JOSH BILLINGS' PHILOSOPHY,

Good laws execute thems'lves; bad laws are their own executors. Lazy people are nevpr more busy nor happy than when they are stealing the time of others. Reading- is a good iiahit, but to

read without reflecting is like bolting one's breakfast. True genius, although it secretly knows its power, is often astonished that others should" recognise it. Philosophy has made but few Christians, but • Christianity has made legions of philosophers. A proverb is a sudden sentence, as swift as . an arrow, feathered . with wisdom and barbed with wit. Difficultys are like spooks — when you cum to run them down, they don't amount to much. The.brtsest hind of servitude is to be obliged to flatter those whom we can't help but dispise. Adversity puts weapons into a man's hands to fight back with, while prosperity often disarms him. There is nothing more scarce than originality, and there is nothing that each person thinks is so plenty. Bold men are generally desperate, and timid ones are always "weak. i have seen- people whom I thought were altogether too pious to be happy, or to let other folks be. Isatnre has given birth to more horrid monsters of men than she ever has of beasts or reptiles. 'Ihore are but few peop'e who ever get rich enough to enjoy their wealth . . Leisure and laziness are two very different things. Leisure is time for doing something useful. Laziness is id.eness without profit. If a man succeeds, you can find hundreds o! people who predicted it ; and if he fails, the same ones predicted that too. I never have cum across a man jet so modest who did not think he was entitled to all the fame he possessed, and, if anything, a little more. There is such a thing as being too active in bisness ; there' is a certain kind of iazyne»s that often succeeds the best. lly clear boys, ir you would win in life's game, be honest and urgent; this p?ir of cards will beat fours of any other kind. There is one thing that no woman has ever yet been able to do correctly, and that is, to throw a stone at a mark. I don't beleave in footing- around ennything. ' 1 never was crazy to take enny unnecessary risks. If I was called upon to mourn over a dead mule; I should star.d in front of him, and do my weeping. Faith, according to the belief ot many folks, is to trust in what they can | rove ; and yet these fools can't prove, to save their lives, why a rat has a long tail, and a rabbit a short one, and a bear none at all. What little I know about things has none of the poetry of book learning in it ; I have picked it up as a cat picks up how to swim, by being hove into a mill-pond and then get ashore as best she can. Common Report (I am not acquainted with the person individually) is one ot the greatest liars the world has ever produced ; and yet Common Report has been known to tell the truth when it could not be got at in enny other way.

In .modern naval conflicts opposing vessels seldom come within two railed of each oti-er until the vanquished vessel strikes her colours. The war bugle that sounded the charge th.it set>t th« Light Brigade to destruction at Balaklnva, was lately sold at auction in London for 3,935 dollars. A sparrovsNuawk caused the dent'n of two canaries in a cage at Oregon. It thrust its head between the bars, seized the canaries, and then twisted their necks, "~ Hubber tires on a carriage add 25 per" cent to the durability of the vehiclo; and decrease the cost of repairs 50 per cent. In Massaloupo, a mountain resort of Japan, there is a spring of blood-heat temperature. Some of the visitors remain in this water for a whole week, with a stone on their knees to keep them from turning o?er in their sleep.