HUMOUR.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 851, 16 March 1877, Page 3

HUMOUR.

The thing to throw light on spiritulistic seances—A spirit lamp. Table-turning—Looking for a train in "Bradshaw."

A man may love domestic quiet and harmony enough to keep his mouth shut while his wife's relations are in the house, but when he sees one of his fine ruffled shirts on his brother in-law, what wonder if he feels that he must go down in the cellar and shovel coal, or burst. Dressmaker: ' How would you like the dress made ?' Cook : ' The latest fashion, in course.' Dressmaker: 'A pocket, I suppose?' Cook: 'No! everybody wears pockets nowadays. Even misses and young miss has 'em.'

' It is said that a hen held up by one leg will not squawk half as much as when both legs are grasped.' Thanksgiving Day 13 two months hence, and persons who are accustomed to purchasing their poultry at night, a few hours after the owner of the fowls has retired, would do well to cut this out and paste it in their hats.

An American chemist has discovered the temperature of a place which is paved—thereby somewhat resembling Pall Mall—with good intentions to be 70,000 deg. Fahrenheit. 'Since we have known this,' remarks a 'Frisco editor, ' we have never kept more than live aces up our sleeve at a time.' We have now the fall of the autumn leaf; also the fall of the man who steps on it on the wet pavement. A leaf no longer than a 10-cent note will get under the heel of a man worth 213,000d01., and make him sit down so suddenly that the most practical eye can't tell whether his hat or his collar button flew the highest. Horace Greeley once said that perseverance is only another name for genius. They are, in reality, as different a.s can be. Mr Greeley's attention at the time was attracted

by a torn cat which had perched upon his back fence for two days and nights without changing its position, and with his usual impetuosity hs magnified the capacity of the animal and sacrificed truth to a glittering generality. It was a gentlemanly young man who remarked wonderingly how a young lady could make herself ridiculous by yielding to the absurd vagaries of fashion. Then the wind caught him by the new style of shirt collar on which his hat rested, and he was obliged to clasp both arms around a telegraph pole in order to keep from being wafted over a neighbouring roof. When a Yonkers man jumps out of bed as the whistle blows for quarter to seven, lights the fire, carries in the coal, dresses the children, draws the water, blacks his boots, shaves himself, eats his breakfast, has family worship—we say when a man does all this and then goes down on the eight o'clock train, he realises the fact that some things can be done as well as others, and that there is nothing like living in the country in the winter. Speaking of the distress of the poor this spell of weather, Old Si said, ' Dar's one sine dat sho's howmon'strous bad de niggers is suff'rin !' ' What is that ?' * Why, dere's so menny ob dem 'round tryin' fer ter swap off dere dogs fer cord-wood !' ' Oh, I see !' ' Yas, sah, dat's de onfallerbil sine, fer when a nigger oncupples frum his dog yer kin kno' dat his nabors is standin' gyard ober dere fences an' some cullud gemman's toes is in Jack Fross' jaws !' Referring to a patent suicide in Scotland, where a man named Duncan blew himself to pieces with dynamite, the Ne?v York Times says :—As a means of easy and successful suicide, Mr Duncan's invention is nearly faultless. It kills its man in the most thorough manner, and without leaving a particle of waste. Those who use it run no risk of spoiling carpets or of poisoning ponds, and inflict no gratuitous corpses upon innocent people, who have no desire for such gifts, and who grudge the funeral expenses which they entail. If the suicide is only careful to explode his dynamite in localities where there will be no danger of accidentally blowing up unwary spectators, it will be impossible to find any reasonable fault with him. Thanks to Mr Duncan, the suicide need no longer be an expensive nuisance, but he can quietly take his dynamite into a vacant lot and distribute himself in the shape of impalpable and inoffensive dust over miles of surrounding country.