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Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 529, 8 June 1869, Page 4

A whisky-drinking Irishman was brought before a magistrate named Porter, charged with being drunk and disorderly. The magistrate committed the delinquent to prison for a month, telling him that would give him lime to curse whisky. "Yes, faith," was the ] risoner's reply, and 'Porter' too." Who laughs too much? They say that pirls do, but we have never believed it. To our cars the laughter of girls is as musical as it was to Byron's, and as symbolic of all that is young and fresk and dewy and 'alive.' We are sure this connection between life and laughter is not enough thought of by our dyspeptic and saturnine yet life-loving generation. Tbey would live long and happily, ami yet neglect one of the soundest means of doing so. Lady Gay Spanker wished that all nature had but one mouth that she might kiss it, and if our whole community had but one equally assailable spot — it is under the arms with children — that some benevolent laughing philosopher might daily tickle it, it would be better for national spirits, digestion, aid longevity. The late Lord Chesterfield happened to be at a rout in France where Voltair was one of the guests. Chesterfield seemed to be gazing about the brilliant circle of ladies, when Voltair thus accosted him — "My lord, I know you are a judge : which are more beautiful, the English or French ladies?" "Upon my word," replied his lordship, with his usual presence of mind, " I am no connoisseur in pain tings." We do not often hear people talk of an intrepid patience, yet nobody with any reflection or observation will deny that there is such a thing. Consider the intrepidity of patience on the intellectual side implied in setting about one of those great literary tasks whose execution our own time has been so fortunate as to witness. The tenacity of a merchant who deliberately contemplates the prospect of ever so many years' drudgery and anxiety, before he realises his proposed fortune, is not any more marked than the tenacity of an atithor, like Milman or Grote, who calmly contemplates an equally long prospect of toil to be undergone before the goal of the final chapter shall be reached. Our life is a continual decadence of power. From one to three years old, we are Lord Paramount Baby. From three till about twenty-seven, we are subject to our superiors — parents, masters, college dons, senior counsel, rectors, snd other authorities. From about the age of twenty-seven to the end of our lives we are ruled over by those who are facetiously called our inferiors — wives, sons, daughters, servants, clerks, deputies, and junior partners. And this is the harshest rule of all, and often the most galling ; for the cruelty of the weak to the strong, of the inferior to the superior, is often very great ; and there is an irony about it which is very painful, though somewhat ludicrous. At the close of the season in which Shuter' the comedian, first became so generally and deservedly celebrated in his performance of Master Stephen, in the revived comedy of " Every Man in his Humor," he was engaged for a few nights in the principal city in the north of England. It happeued that the coach in which he went, and in which there was only an old gentleman and himself, was stopped on the other side of Finchley Common by a sinple highwayman. The old gentleman, in order to save his own money, pretended to be asleep ; but Shuter resolved to be even with him. Accordingly, when the highwayman presented the pistol, and commanded Shuter to deliver his money instantly, or he was a dead man — "Money !" replied he, with an idiotic shrug, and a countenance inexpressibly vacant, "Oh Lord, sir, they never trusts me with any ; for uncle here always pays for me, turnpikes and all, your honor ! " Upon which the highwayman gave him a few curses for his stupidity, complimented the old gentleman with a smart slap on the face to awaken him, and robbed him of every shilling he hid in his pocket ; while Shuter who did not lose a single fax-th-ing, had the laugh of his fellow-traveller.