Facetiæ.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 135, 9 February 1877, Page 7

Facetiæ.

"A little nonsense now aud then, Is relished by the wisest men."

A Woman who applied for a situation as cabdriver, being, asked if she could manage mules, scornfully replied, " Of course T ean — I've had two husbnndsA

A Good Epitaph. — An excellent character was engraven on the tombstone of a lady in these few words :—-» " She waa always busy and always quiet."

Ship About. —At a Cambridge election a voter once discharged a dead cat full in the face of Macnuhiy, and then, apolog-i; n ;•. sa ; d that it was* hot meant for him, but for Mr Adeane. -lacaulay replied, " I wish you had intended it for me and hit Mr Adeane. *'

No Obtrusion. ---A loquacious blockhead, after babbling some time to Lord Rrslyne, observed he was afraid he was obtruding on nis lordship's ear. " Oh, not at all," said Erskine ; " I have not being listening.'* " Bliza," said a clergyman to one of his parishioners, whom he saw with her hair in curling papers, "if nature had designed your hair to curl, it would have curled it for you " "It did, sir, when I was a child," was the reply 5 " but i suppose it thinks now that I am old enough to do it for myself.*'

All the Requisites. — '• How do you like your minister, Madge '?" asked one very stylish- dressed young lady of another in a Highland car, the other day. " Oh, he is just splendid !" she replied, with animation. " You ouo-ht to see him, Maud. He is so handsome, and he prays so beautifully, and reads the hymns in such a lovely way; and, besides, Maud, there was a dreadful scandal about, him in fhe place where he preached before he came here."

The Good of Confession. — Two travellers having being assigned to the same bed -room in a crowded hotel, one of them, before retiring, knelt down to pray, and confessed aloud a catalogue of sin. On rising from his knees he saw his fellow-traveller, valise in hand, going out of the door, and exclaimed, "What's the matter? What's up?" " Oh, nothing," was the reply ; " only I'm not going to risk myself with such a scamp as you confess yourself U> be 1" A waggish fellow, somewhat troubled with an impediment in his speech*, while one day sitting at a public table, had occasion to u.*_*e a peppeisboi. After shaking it with all due vehemence, mid turning it in various ways, he found that the crushed peppercorns were in no wise inclined tv come forth. aT-t---th-this p-pe-pepper-box," he exclaimed, with a facetious grin, "isso-some-something li-like myself." " Why so ?" interrogated a neighbour. " P-poo-poor delivery," was the reply. When the Landers were travelling in Africa, they tarried for a time at the court of one of the native potentates. During their sojourn, the rations of his tawny majesty was not sufficient to prevent the travellers from consuming the contents of sundry hermetically-sealed tin vessels they had brought with them from Europe. The empty tins, which, as a matter of course, were thrown away by the travellers, were eagerly picked up by tho natives. Guess the

surprise ofthe Landers one fine sunny morning on seeing one of the chief nobles stalk into court with his head thrust into one of the identical empty square tins, on each of the four sides of which the English maker had printed in large characters " Concentrated Gravy." The splendid new helmet of the African duke excited the envy of his compeers, and even roused the covetousness of the king. American Advertising. — The Americans are far in advance of us in poetic advertismf-nts, and some examples given by Harppr's Magazine show that their genius in this line leaves little to be desired What, f or instance, can be more striking than the following blast of a trumpet blown by a tailor in his own honour 1

Oh, oome into the garden, Maud, And ait beneath the rose, And see me prancp around the hprls, Dressed in my Sunday clothes. Oh, come and bring your uncles, Maud, Your si-.ters and your aunfcs, And tell them Johnson made my coat My waistcoat and my pants. Again, a tobacconist thus advertises his establishment in the following beautiful stanza •: —

Gaily young Ferguson bought his cigar, Bought it at ilulligan'd where the best are. When he wants fine cut ©r snuff for his noso Gaily young Ferguson purchases those.

Perhaps, however, for exciting tender and holy emotions, and exalting the soul above the earth, nothing in modern poetry can be found equal to an advertisement of a provision shop, which runs as follows ; — •

Oh say not I love you h o cavis'} the molasses, You purchased at Simpson's was golden and clear ; The syrup, tlie sugar, the jolly in glasses, The crackers, the mack'rel I know were not dear ;

But when you come to mc with Simpson's smoked salmon, And showed me his samples of Limburger cheese, I felt that hi*3 claim to be cheap Was not gammon ; Hove you, and said so, dear Jane, on 1113* knees.

This mingling of poetry aud provision supplies a o*reat want, for, as has been truly said by Fuller, '' Poetry is music in words iind mu&ic is poetry in sound ; both excellent sauce ; bnt. they have lived and died poor that made them (their) meat.'' Poets now-a-days no longer happily depend, like Chatterton, on the smiles of the great, but with grocers for their patrons may grow fat upon song. — Pall Mall Gazette,