JOKES AND JOKERS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18786, 21 May 1923, Page 12

JOKES AND JOKERS.

I FAMOUS SPORTSMAN’S LAUGH ABLE YARNS. ■ The late Lord Glasgow, a notori- ■ ously short-tempered man, was once presented with a bill at a York hotel I the items of which were: Chop, a shil lling; champagne, ten shillings; and ■ for breaking waiter’s arm, five I pounds. I It was Lord Glasgow also who handed a ten-pound note to the ticket clerk at a railway station and was told he must endorse it before it could be accepted. He therefore wrote “Glasgow” on the back, which made the clerk say, “I want your name and not Where you are going to, silly mon!” The last two words were scarcely out of the clerk’s mouth before the irate peer had dashed his first through the booking-office window, THE RIVAL STORY-TELLERS. The above are told by Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny in “Forty Years of a Sportsman’s Life” (Mills and Boon;. Here are more of his stories:— Three officers in the 4th Hussars planned a practical joke which was frustrated in an ingenious manner. The trio conceived the brilliant idea of posting down to the West of England and visiting the house of a friend disguised as bum-bailiffs. Their scheme need not have mis carried had it not been disclosed to a fourth party, who wired down to lhe intended victim warning him that three notorious London cracksmen were shortly going to visit his house. The police were put on their guard. Directly the conspirators appeared they were arrested, despite all remonstrances. They were detained for se.veral hours until they were able to prove their identity. Sir Claude was once engaged in a fight, in -which, soon after the start, he broke his finger, but continued the struggle against his opponent. A professional prize-fighter said to him afterwards, “When your finger was broken you ougnt to have hit bin: with the wrist-end of the flat of your hand!" The Marquess of Queensberry bought a racehorse for £7OO and ran him several times. The horse was over-handicapped, and could do nothing. The Marquess at length offered the animal to anybody who would buy him on the course after the last race. Everybody laughed at the offer until at last a butcher ventured to say he would run to a five-pound note. Shortly afterwards the Marquess was surprised by seeing the horse entered in two race and handicapped no less than two stone lighter than he had ever been on previous occasions. With the butcher's consent, the Marquess, who was a good rider, rode the horse himself in two events and i won. He then bought the horse back for £2OO, but it was at once over-weighi-ed again and never afterwards won a race. Sir Claude was once foreman of the Grand Jury at Essex Summer As sizes, and as he was anxious to catch the three o’clock train from Chemsford he left it to two others to take the last of the true bills and the usual presentment into court. The documents were handed to the Clerk of Arraigns, who at once noticed that they had not been signed by Sir Claude as foreman. The judge said it would be necessary tor the foreman to sign them before the Grand Jury could be discharged "But, my Lord,” he was told amidsi the laughter of the court, “our foreman’s bolted.”

In the end a policeman ran all tbu way to the station in time to null Sir Claude from the train! Two colonels In the Indian arm? were renowned as story-tellers—in both senses. Each, no doubt, recognized the other’s reputation for won derful talcs. They accordingly avoided meeting as much as possible, and when it was said in the presence of one: “By the way, B 's been invited," he would reply, “Well, between you and me, B ’s the biggest liar in all India.” B—— used to express himself as freely about his rival. VOYAGE ON A HEN COOP. One of the stories told by B—— was that he was wrecked in the Indian Ocean and managed to save himself by clinging to a hen-coop. After a while he became quite at home on the hen-coop and made for Aden He met a steamer on the way and the captain offered to take him on Board. B asked where the ship was going to and the reply was Bombay. “But I am going to Aden, thanks," said B , “so I’m afraid I must de cline your kind offer!” Thus they parted, B—— merely accepting the loan of a few biscuits and some ship’s rum. This same man boasted to a friend about an exploit in snipe shooting, when ho killed, so he said, fortynine birds in as many shots. “Why not make it fifty while you are about it?” inquired a cynical listener. "Sir,” was the reply, “do you sup pose I would risk my immortal soul for a single snipe?"