VARIETIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 2043, 24 September 1874, Page 4

VARIETIES.

M. Theodore de Banville was being bored the other, evening at a party by an individual wbo asked him all sorts of foolish questions. "Can you tell; me, sir," said this person, "• how verses are made, for I confess I have never been able to understand." — '« It is very easy, sir."—" Really ?"— « Yes. Yon take lines of unequal length, you put rhymes at the end, and talent inside of them."—" Ah 1" The following is a local item in a Western paper : " Yesterday morning a boy sauntered up to a yard in Eight street, where a woman was scratching the bosom of the earth with a rake, and leaning on the fence, said, ' Are you going around the back yard after a while 1' The woman said she didn't know ; maybe she would, why ? « Because,' the boy said, ' I just saw the cistern lidsfirop on the baby's head a minute ago, and thonght if jou went aroand you might lift it off.' It is currently reported that the woman went."

Old Bily Brown, of Burlington, N.J., furnished a striking example of "the ruling passion strong in death." When very HI, and friends were expecting an early demise, his nephew and a man hired for the occasion had butchered a steer which had heen fattened, and when the job was completed, his nephew entered the sick room, where a few of his friends were assembled, when, to the astonishment of all, the old man opened his eyea, and turning his head slightly, said, "What have you been doing?" "Killing the steer," was the reply. "What did you do with the hide ?" " Left it in the barn ; going to sell it by-and-by." "Let the boys drag it round the yard a couple ot times ; it will make it weigh heavier." And the good man was gathered to his fathers.

One of the marked men of the Dissenting Ministry thus illustrated a Scriptural truth : — " My hearers, did you ever see a cat ? Did you ever see a cat walk ? Did you ever see a cat walk upon the top of a wall ? Did you ever see a cat walk upon the top of a wall covered with broken glass ? How carefully she lifted each foot ! How slowly ahd cautiously she set it down again ! So would the text from which I propose to speak have you act. "See that you walk circumspectly.' ''

Not long ago an officer of the London School Board was crossing Covent Garden Market at a late hour, wben he found a little fellow making his bed for the night in a fruit basket. " Would you not like to go to school and be well cared for?" said the official. "No," said the urchin. "But do you know I am one of the people who are authorised to take up little boys whom we find as I find you, and take them to school ?" " I knows you are, old chap, if you find them in the streets, bnt tbis here is not a street, it is private property, and if you interferes with my liberty, the Duke of Bedford will be down upon you. I nowa the hact as well as you."

A recent writer expresses his opinioa oi old maids in the following manner >— tf lam inclined to think that many of the satirical aspersions cast upon old maids tell more to tljgir credit than is generally imagined. Js a young woman remarkably neat in her person ? ' she will certainly be an old maid.' Is she particularly reserved towards the other sex ? ' she has all the squeamishness of an old maid.' Is sbe frugal in her expenses and exact in her domestic concerns ? ' she is cut out for an old maid.' And if she is kindly humane to the animals about her, nothing can save her from the appellation of ' old maid.' In short, I have always found that neatness, modesty, economy, and humanity are the never-failing characteristics of that terrible creature, an ' old maid.' "