Varieties.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 505, 31 December 1869, Page 3

Varieties.

" Ma'am," said a quack of this city to a nervous old lady, " your case is a scrutunuturury complaint." " Pray, doctor, what is that ? " "It is the dropping of the nerves, ma'am ; the nerves having fallen in the pizorinturn, the chist becomes niorberous, and the head becomes tisarizeen, tisarizeen." •• Ah, doctor ! " exclaimed the old la'ly, " you have described my feelins exactly." Cornelius O'Dowd tells us a good story of the elder Matthews, whose great affliction in life was that he never was able to lose anything. Walking one day with a well-dressed man of fashion, Matthews suddenly found out that his gloves were in tho shabbiest possible condition. They were torn, soiled, and, ( worse still, they had been mended. Eager | to divest himself of such obnoxious " prol perties," he rolled them furtively together, and as they were passing over Westminster Bridge at the time, he seized a favourable moment to jerk them into the Thames. Like a man who had relieved his bosom, he now strode along, head erect and conscience easy ; but scarcely had he reached the Southwark side when a waterman accosted him with the fatal gloves in his hand, saying I saw your honour when you dropped them, and had a sharp bit of a row to catch them with the falling tide. Two gentlemen from New York, one of whom had been ia California nearly a year, and the other just arrived, were accidentally overheard in the following conversation at the Sutter House, Sacramento. The new comer was lamenting his condition, and especially his having been compelled to leave behind two beautiful daughters who were just budding into womanhood, when he asked the other if he had a family. " Yes, sir ; I have a wife and six children in New York, and I never saw one of them." After this the couple sat a few moments in silence, and then the interrogator again commenced. "Were you ever blind, sir?" "No, sir." Another lapse of time. " Did I understand you to say, sir, that you had a wife and six children living in New York, and had never seen one of them ? " " Yes, sir ; Iso stated it." Another and a long pause of silence. Then the interrogator again inquired : " How can it be, sir, that you never saw one of them ? " " Why, was the response, one of them was born after I left." " Oh ! ah 1 " and a general laugh followed. After that the first New Yorker was especially distinguished as the man who had six children, and never saw one of them.