Wisdom of a Wit.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 June 1922, Page 1

Wisdom of a Wit.

-MR MURPHY’S MAXIMS. “There are many things we may laugh at to keep up our spirits,” said Mr Patrick Francis Murphy, a Now York business man and a humorist, in the course of a speech io the American 'Luncheon Club at the Savoy Hotel, London. “A good speech requires tact and power of endurance on the part of the audience,” he said solemnly, and proceeded to make a speech of which the audience could only complain that it ; should have lasted at least twice as , long. Here are some of the epigrams which kept his hearers in roars ol laughter: "Praise is pleasing not only lo the receiver but to the giver. The one receives it as the reward of merit, and the other gives it to show his magnanimity and command of language. "AA'hcnevcr you see two men laughing together, you may be sure that some misfortune has happened to a third. -“Like Jonah in the belly of thel-

whale, 1 have travelled much and seen little.

“Providence lms bestowed modesty on some people, and on others a disposition from public life. “As we wander through a cemetery wo wonder whole all the sinners are buried. “.Many men in public life adopt the method of that old statesman who said that he did not exactly forgi'vo his enemies but he did his best to put them in.a position where lie could sympathise with them. "Two parties are like two jealous lovers paying court to the same woman. They hate each other and love their country. “England has led Ireland up to the altar of freedom, hut without orange blossom. “It never enters the mind of an Englishman to think about the superiority of his countrymen. He talics it for granted. “(loll* is a game of honour played in t!:e garden of lies.’ .