Varieties.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 298, 28 April 1869, Page 3

Varietie s.

A»Sambo, giving an account of his sea voyage, cays, "All de passengers was now heaving, and, as if dat wasn't enough, de captain gave orders for de ship to heave too." A foreigner, speaking of the House of Commons, says : — " So difficult is it for anything to be heard inside its gorgeous walls, that the impatient members are oblige! to be continually calling out, " Hear, hear !" The BE9t' Judge. — A lady said to her husband, in Jerrold's presence :— " My dear, you certainly want some new trousers." " No, I think not," replied too husband. " Well," Jerrold interposed, " I think the lady who wears them ought to know." There is a person employed on a certain railway, who brags of having a watch that keeps correct time. He was heard to remark, a few mornings since, upon pulling out his watch, "If the sun ain't over the hill in a minute and a half, he will be late." In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the police officers arrest all children found in the street duringschool hours, unless they can give a good excuse for their absence. Au Irish boy recently told an officer that "he had been excused to attend a funeral." lie was found very soon after at a base-ball match, and the officer inquired why he was not at tho funeral. The reply was that he had been down to the house, naming its resident, " but the man wasn't dead yet." An orthodox divine in Massachusetts, who was in the habit of playing with his sermon notes while the choir were singing, accidentally dropped them in a crack in his desk. After trying some time to recover them without success, he addressed the congregation as follows :— '• My dear friends, I brought my notes with me this morning, and have got them into this provoking crack and can't get them out; but I will read two chapters in the Book of Job, which are worth any two of my sermons." Dr Bagby,of the Native Virginian, wants a collector, and thus describes the sort of man required for that position : — " Wanted at this office, an able-bodied, hard-featured, badtempered, not-to-be-put-ofit and not-to-be-backed-down, freckled-faced young man, to collect for this paper. Must furnish his own horse, saddle-bags, pistolß, whiskey, bowieknife, and cow-hide. We will furjish the accounts. To such we promise constant; and laborious employment." A reporter wrote the verdict of a coroner's jury " Died from hemorrhage," and next day the reading public were informed that the deceased had " died from her marriage." This is on a par vrith the experience of a reporter in an American paper, who, in an article on the city poor, spoke of the great number of persons reduced to poverty by the " mysterious decrees of Providence." His astonishment may be imagined when he saw the passage printed " mysterious decrease of provisions."