MISCELLANEOUS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 426, 17 June 1870, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Count de C'rbiero has just died at the acre of sixty five years, It is related of his father, the rather plebean Minister of Louis XVIII., that the first time ho took his seat at tbd council board be commenced by placing on the table his portfolio, bis note-book, his cloves, his hat, his snectacies, his snuff-box, his pocket-handker* chief. “ Well, M. de Corhiere,” said the King, “when will yon have finished emptying vonr pockets?” “Sire/’ answered the new minister, “ would you prefer to see me fill them?” a reply which ranch amused His Majesty,—“ Pall Mall Gazette.” i An old toper started home one nightf from “uptown” in his normal condition, wit hj a turkey he had obt fine I for a 1> diday din nor. H3 found the road very much, and fell several times over all sorts of obs'ructions in the path. Each time he fell he dropped (he turkey, hut contrived to pick it up again. On entering his house he steadied himself as well as he was able, and said to his wife, “ Hers, wifey, I’ve got Teven turkeys for yon.” “Eleven turkeys' What do mean? There is only one.” There must he ’loven turkeys, wifey, for I fell down ’levcn times,and everv time I found a turkey. There murt he ’leven turkeys” It is a joke in Washington that, for sixty fiveyears, Congress voted 1,500" every se=siou for the salary of “ the keeper of the crypt,” because no member had the moral courage to confess his ignorance of the meaning of the word. The jokers say that many members thought that it was some mysterious object, like the mace, without which Congress would not be Congress. Certain it is that the money was voted without question every year, until in 1868 the item caught the eye of Genera! Butler, and he asked members on the Committee of Appropriations what it meant. No one being able t 0 tell him, ho went down forthwith into the crypt of the capital in search of its ‘.keeper’ No such officer was known in these subterraneous regions. After a prolonged inquiry he discovered that soon after the death of General Washington, when it was expected that his remains would he deposited in the crypt under the dome. Congress created the office in question, for the better protection of the sacred vault. Mrs. Washington refusing her consent, the crypt remained vacant; hut the office was not abolished, and the appropriation passed unchallenged until General Butler made his inquiry, when it was stricken out— “ The pressure upon Congress,” in the “Atlantic Monthly.”