SCOTCH JOKES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 808, 2 December 1882, Page 3

SCOTCH JOKES.

f The Scotch are a highly humorous ■people, as anybody who has lived i4mongst them, or read Smollet, Scott, rpr . Dean Ramsay, or even heard Mr Macandrew descant on finance, will 'allow; but they are not remarkable for their sparkling wit . It what Sydney Smith said about the difficulty of fnakihg them understand other people’s jokes be true, it could hardly be expected that their own would be very brilliant. “ Everybody knows you are .ft fool,” said a certain Mr Munro to a i’ Mr Wilson in the Victorian Parliament the other day. “ Everybody knows you are a rogue,” retorted Utter' latter, and when the two gentlemen—both Caledonians, I presume—were called to account for their unparliamentary language, the aggressor explained that it was only a Scotch Joke ! I remember another joke I think, than this one, but. of the same kind. It P told one day by Lord Aberdeen, as that “ great mull of a Scotch premier” was returning with Macaulay and other celebrities from a llisil to Windsor, and the curious reader titilf find it in the second volume of Macauley’s Life. Judge Braxfield, a singularly Scotch Lord of Session, ot whom some other rich stories are related in Cockburn’s Memorials, was playing at whist, when his partner happened’to make a mistake, he exclaimed, "What are you doing, ye damned auld ——.” Then recollecting himself he added, *‘ Your pardon’s begged, madam ; I took ye for my ain wife.” This joke may be considered almost too highly flavored for Passing Notes, and but that it was told by so excellent a nobleman as the father of the present Governor of New Zealand, and care--felly jetted down in Lord Macaulay’s diary. I* should hardly have ventured to present it to my readers even as a specimen of Scotch unit. But it must , be admitted that of its kind it is a gem. 4-“ Civis/'in Otago Witness.