VARIETIES.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 141, 23 July 1872, Page 3

VARIETIES.

The newspaper fraternity of Petaluma have just introduced a new drink. They style it the " Mustang Liniment" Cocktail. A gent l eman living at Austin is the patentee of the latest notion for getting rid of a scolding wife. He sets a spring-gun in his hen roost to shoot robbers, and then sends his wife to fetch eggs. A lady school-teacher in Omaha, having an inordinate dread of the small-pox, sent a little girl home because she said her mother was sick and had marks on her face. The next day the girl presented herself at the school-house, with her little bonnet swinging by the strings, and said to the teacher: " --—, we've got a leetle baby at our house ; but mother told me to tell you that it isn't catchin'." The teacher said she was very glad, and told her pupil to take her seat. Even in Castlemaine you may meet with a sharp retort. The other day a farmeiywho is engaged in an equity suit with some Chinese who were lately mining on his land at the Loddon, met a well-known hospital surgeon, when the following interchange of civilities occurred : Doctor.—" Well I)., haven't you smothered those Chinamen yet?"—"No," said D., "not yet." Doctor.—" Oh, you are a muff; T could have smothered a hundred of them by this time." Farmer.—"Ah, but then, you see, you're a doctor !" A hard hit at the Virginia Legislature of last winter is circulating in Richmond. It appears that a party, who had his own reasons for making the inquiry, approached a Pennsylvania raili road man in Philadelphia, and asked him flatly whether his company intended to spend any I mure money in Richmond. " Xo, sir, no ; emi phatically, no," was the excited reply.— "Why not?"—" I'll tell you why. sir. The members i of the Pennsylvania Legislature are gentlemen, j sir, perfect gentlemen. You don't have to bribe \ them but once ; but (bringing his list in virtuous indignation down upon the table) those d -d scoundrels in Virginia have no more conscience than a hog, ami you never know when you are done buying them." How to Open Oysters.—"Talk of opening oysters!' said old Hurricane, " why, nothing's easier, if you only know how." "And how's how?" inquired Starlight. "Scotch snuff," answered old Hurricane, sententiously—"Scotch snuff. I'iring it ever so near their nose, and I they'll sneeae their lids off."'—" 1 know a genius," ! observed Meister Karl, "who has a better plan. I!e spreads the bivalves in a circle, seats himself in the centre, and begins spinning a yarn ; sometimes its an adventure in Mexico, sometimes a legend of his loves, sometimes a marvellous stock operation in Wall-street. As he proceeds, the 'natives' get interested, one-by-one they gape with astonishment at the tremendous and direful whoppers which are poured forth, and as ! they gape my friend whips 'em out peppers 'em, land swallows 'em.''— " That'll do," said Starlight with a long sigh, " I wish we had a bushel ! of them here n<">w - they'd open easy."