All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 1 December 1910, Page 1994

All Sorts

Hostess: ' Mr, Smith is going to sing a comic song.' Guest. 'I knew something would happen. I upset the salt at the dinner-table.'

• I guess my father must have been a pretty bad boy,' said one youngster. 'Why?' inquired the other. 'Because he knows exactly what questions to ask when he wants to know what I have been doing.'

A woman returned home after a few days' absence and heard her daughter playing on the piano. ' Where d : d you learn that new piece, Martha?' the mother asked. 'lt isn't a new piece, mother. The piano has been tuned.'

Little boy (looking at music catalogue 1 : 'Father, who was Mozart?' Father: 'Mozart? Gracious, my boy, you don't know that? Go and read your Shakespeare!' A teacher, after patiently defining words in a spelling lesson, gave the word, ''gruesome' to be put into a sentence, with this result from the brightest little girl in the class: ' I cannot wear my last summer's dress because I grew some.' ' I don't like your heart action,' the doctor said, applying the stethoscope again. ' You have had some trouble with angina pectoris.' ' You're partly right, doctor,' said the young man, sheepishly; 'only that ain't her name.'

Little Johnny: ' Tommy Dodd's father wants to send him to college, but it won't be any use. He's near sighted.' Aunty: 'He might wear eye-glasses.' Little Johnny: ' Huh I the idea of any one tryin' to play football with eye-glasses on.'

Little Margery ran into the house, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed.. ' Mother.' she exclaimed, ' mother, can anybody be arrested for cheating a baby?' ' Why,' answered her mother, ' why do you want to know ?'

' Well,' said the little girl, ' I saw the lady next door fixing the baby's bottle for him, and she put a lot of water in it.'

This is an extract from a Siamese paper that has an English column for foreign readers: ' Shooting Outrage.—o Fearful Agony.—Khoon Tong was a man of Langoon and on his return accidentally shot at by some miscreant scoundrels. Untimely death, oh fearful ! All men expressed their mourn. The cowardice dogs is still at large.'

' Yes,' said the thoughtful thinker, ' I have an idea for an invention that would make all other get-rich-quick schemes look quite idiotic if I could only perfect it.' ' What's the idea?' queried the party with the bulging forehead.

' A folding horse that would fit under the seat of any cheap motor-car for use in emergencies,' answered the thoughtful one.

Little Bobby imparted to an old maiden lady visitor the important information that his father had got a new set of false teeth.

'lndeed, Bobby!' returned the old lady, curiously. 1 And what will he do with the old set?' ' Oh, I s'pose,' replied Bobby, ' they'll cut 'em down and make me wear 'em!'

Paintings were not her specialty, but as she gazed at a beautiful copy of Millet's ' Gleaners ' her admiration of the work called forth enthusiastic comment.

' What a wonderful picture!' she exclaimed. 'And how natural it looks!' But what are those people doing she inquired, as she bent nearer to read the title. ' Oh, yes, I see—gleaning millet! How perfectly fascinating!' When Pius IX. gave Catholic journalists a patron in the person of St. Francis of Sales, not everyone knew how thoroughly appropriate was his choice. St. Francis was really the founder of journalism, at least in France. The Saint, unable to address the reformers personally, distributed a number of flying sheets called 'Controversies,' in which he resumed what he had already preached or written in defence of the Church. This was in 1595, when Renandot, commonly called the first French journalist, was only eleven years of age.

The first important discovery of natural gas in Europe is reported from Kis-Sarmas, in the district of Klausenburg, in Hungary. Its presence first became known two years ago, when shepherd boys used to light the vapors rising from the marshes. Upon a. geologist's report the Ministry, of Finance directed borings to be made, when large quantities of gas were discovered at a depth of sixty feet. The borings were continued to a depth of 600 ft, when the gas was found in such volume that big stones were thrown into the-air by it. At the present time the gas is flowing out of a pipe twenty feet above the ground with a noise that can be heard six miles away. Experts estimate, the flow at seventy cubic feet a second.