Wit and Humour.

Western Star, Issue 857, 5 July 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

Wit and Humour.

It is not generally known that the father of Arabi Bey is an Irishman. He is called “ Arrah-bedad.” -

A fact—lt is quite true that the copyrights of Dickens’s early novels have expired. Mrs J. herself saw a man in Shoe Lane the other day selling—penny Pickwicks. A public singer who was intolerably affected in his style was utterly “ taken down ” when he appeared in Dublin, by an auditor who cried out at him : “ Come out from behind your nose, you sniveller, and sing your song like a mun !”

Had him that time—(Scene— Farm-yard. Donkey brays.)—His Eiverence —“ Pat, d’ye hear yer mother calling to ye ?” Pat—- “ Shure an’ I do—Father.”

A tipsy Bostonian who was arrested while making vain efforts to clutch at a barber’s pole, exclaimed, as the policeman drifted him in the direction of the station house: “ S ranch, I never saw’r ’rora borealish s’near before.” “ When I was a young man,” says Billings, I was always in a hurry to seize the big end of the log and do all the lifting; now I am older, I seize hold of the small end and do all the grunting." “ Skip the hard words honey, dear,” said an Irish schoolmistress to one of her pupils; “ they are only the names of foreign countries, and you will never be in them.” “ If you was a dog and I was a hog. And I got into your master’s yard. And your master was to set you on me. Would you bit me very hard.” “ Hev I seen Paddy O'Brien, says you 1 No, I hev not; but the ither day on the sthrate, thinks Ito meself, that’s Paddy O’Brien beyant that I sees. And Paddy thinks as how its me he sees ; but faix, when we come up wid each ither, we find that it’s naythur of us.” A bibulous painter was introduced to a lady who had been represented to him as quite a talented artist. He greeted her by saying : “ I understand, madam, that you paint ?” She started, blushed deeply, and, recovering herself after a few seconds, said, with as much acidity of tone and style as she could command : “Well, if I do paint, I don’t make any mistake and put it on my nose.” A confirmed old bachelor was out at a social gathering the other evening, where he was so unfortunate as to become seated behind a party of vivacious young ladies. Conversation turned upon athletic subjects, when one pert young miss inquired : “ Mr Brown, what is your favourite exercise ?” “Oh ! I have no preference; but just at present I should prefer dumb belles,” was his rather curt reply. A “ notion ” seller was offering Yankee clocks, finely varnished and coloured, and with a looking-glass in front, to a lady not remarkable for her personal beauty. “ Why. it’s beautiful I” said the vendor. “ Beautiful, indeed I a look at it almost frightens me I” said the lady. “Weil ma’am,” replied Jonathan, “ I guess you’d better buy one that hain’t got no lookingglass.” “ I don’t like that carpet at all,” said Faura, “ and I won’t have it. The figure is too dreadfully small” “ Small!” shrieked Tom, the eyes starting out of his head. “ Figure too small at $2.15 a yard ! Well, it’s big enough for my salary, and not a cent over that do I go if we should walk on bare floors all our lives.” And when she told him what a goose he was,, he looked about 40 per cent, cheaper than the plainest piece of rag carpet on the top shelf.

At the Pont des Arts, in Paris, is a blind man who carries a hoard around his neck with this singular sign—“ Blind by Birth and by Accident.” “ See here, my good man,” said a passer-by, “ your sign is positively distracting. Can you tell us how you happen to be blind by birth and by accident at the sametime ?” “ Easy enough,” said the old man. “ You see. Pm blind by birth myself, and I’ve bought out a blind man who did business at the other end of the bridge. He was blind by accident.” Stray shot—(picked up at the Easter Monday manoeuvres). —The regiment that muster'd the largest numbers finished by peppeeing the enemy. The volunteers appear to have been very temperate at Portsmouth. Though they sacked several public houses, they did not break the glacis, A. Sloper spent the “ last shot in his locker,” standing at E.’s. Recruits, like turnips, require a deal of drilling. The British public, on finding there was no “ grand stand ” to view the march past, were reduced to tiers.”

A wretch.—Belinda (to old Codrington, friend of the family, who had just dropped in the very evening the young man with the eye-glass came to propose) —“ And pray how do you account for your memory being so very good as you say on chronological matters?” Old C. —“ Because, my dear, I compare events. Now, for instance, I remember when you were born, for on that very day my old aunt Betsey’s lapdog died ; she followed suit a fortnight later, and I became her heir, and that is —let me see—yes—that’s j u&t forty years ago to a day.” (And the lady supposed to be only 5J5! Makes up his mind to change his sight with his next eye-glass.) A matter-of-fact young man.—A tourist wandering alone uponj the edge of a bog at the foot of Ben Nevis had the misfortune to miss the proper path and stumbled into a bog, where, ere long, his struggling served to sink him to his armpits in the tenacious mire. In this terrible plight he espied a stout young Highlander not far away, to whom he cried out at the top of his voice s— “ Ho—what ho, Donald! Here —come here !” “My name is not Donald,” said the Highlander, approaching the spot. “ Never mind what your name is. Do you see the plight lam in ? I can never get out of this alone.” “ Indeed, mon, I diuna think ye can.” And with that he turned away. “ Good Heaven! are you going to leave me here to die ?” the tourist cried. “ Eh, d’want me to help you ?” “Do I want you to help? What can Ido else?' bhure I dinna know.” “ Will you help me ?” “I ? If you want me.” “ Oh, help, help ! Help me in Heaven’s name I” “ Indeed, mon, why didn’t you ask that in the first place ?” And the Highlander quickly lifted him out and set him on hard ground. TRADE AND MARKET NOTES. “ Tin—Firm, as a rule.” As usual after the holidays, very little loose cash knocking about. “American yarns—No change whatever from lust reports ” —the same story, in fact. “Iron ore—Tne market shows no variation ” the business done being quite Oredinary. “ At Leicester, stocking hands are active ” naturally implying that stocking feet are ditto. “ A strike is in progress in the hinge trade ’’—which it’s to be hoped will be got over without any permanent hinge-ury to any one.