VARIETIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 118, 24 December 1908, Page 5

VARIETIES.

♦- In Mourning.

A young fellow marched into a local public-house the other day, and asked for a glass of beer. After being served he looked critically at the beverage, then proceeded to fill his pipe. The barman was shortly afterwards called from the room, and on his return was astonished to find all the blinds drawn down,

"Who'sdrawn them blinds down?" he inquired. 'T did," replied the customer. "What did you do that for?" demanded the irate barman.

"Silence, man!" was the response "Speak gently; the beer's dead!"

What He Would Sign. "Farmer Giles," said the Suffragette sweetly, "won't you sign our petition?" The old man eyed the document suspiciously, and asked after a while: "What is it for?" The lady, noticing his look of semihostility, dared not say that it was in favour of female suffrage, so she replied, after some hesitation: "Oh, it's an address in favour of the women's movement." "Then Fm agin it!" answered Farmer Giles, with a firmness that suggested some domestic infelicity. "A woman who's always a-movin' is alius a-gettin' into trouble! If you got any thing to keep her still, though," he added, "I'll sign it an' welcome!"

On the Beach. "Put down that camera, you cur; how dare you snap-shot my wife bathing?" * "Your wife! Here, quick, stop that man in the row boat with a harpoon and a shot gun. He and I both thought it was the sea-serpent."

Try This Trick. Two travellers were chatting in a tramcar. "I bet you a good cigar," said the first traveller, "that without saying a word, I can make the old ■boy opposite take out his watch and see what time it is." I'll take that bet," the other answered. Then the first traveller watched the old man across the aisle until he caught his eye, when he drew forth his watch and looked at it. The old man with a thoughtful air, slowly unbuttoned his coat and consulted his own timepiece. "Give me a cigar," said the traveller, "It's the third I've won today on this trick. It never fails."

He Wants Sympathy. He loves to tell you of his woes; He has enough to drive him frantic, They may be small but I suppose To him they're really quite gigantic, And yet he's happy as can be During the time flf their relation. It's worth while having them, you see, To get your sweet commiseration.

He'll tell you of the sums he's lost In one investment or another, And what his offspring's schooling cost, The while your straining yawns you smother. He'll tell you how he cannot sleep, And yet he's forced to early rising, And even if you cannot weep, He loves to hear sympahising.

He's always heaving heavy sighs And wears a very sad expression. You'd better dodge him, otherwise Your in for quite a lengthy session. My heart is rather hard, I fear; For, honestly I hate to hear At least my pity never bubbles; The man who loves to tell his troubles,

Choice Thoughts. It is less pain to learn in youth than to be ignorant in age.—Solon. It is vain to be always looking towards the future, and never acting towards it. —Boyes. ' Truth should be the first lesson of the child, and the last aspiration of manhood. —Whittier.

Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest into heaven is the beating of a loving heart. 'Tis the beginning of virtue to escape from vice, and the beginning of wisdom to be free from folly.—Horace. What is our lice but an endless flight of winged facts or events; in splendid variety these changes come, all putting question to the human spirit.-—Emer-son.

The strength of a woman is as needful to her womanhood as ths strength of a man to his manhood, and the woman is just as strong as she will be. — George Macdonald. What a glorious world this would be if all its inhabitants could say with Shakespeare's shepherd: "Sir, lam a true labourer; I earn what I wear; owe no man hate; envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good; content with my flock,." A truth looks freshest in the fashion of the day. —Tennyson. It is really the errors of man that make him lovable. — Goethe. Words are wise men's counters, but the money of fools. — Hobbes. To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul. — Cicero.

Even Christians loved one another at first starting.—Charles Reade. Character builds an existence out of circumstances. —G. H. Lewes. Fashionable vice is the worst sort of sheepishness. —G. Bernard Shaw. It is only love that has already fallen sick that is killed by absence. — Daine. Books are the money of literature, but only the counters by absence. — Huxley. A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any state of the market.--Charles Lamb. Since we are not responsible for our birth,' how can we be held accountable for subsequent indiscretions? —H. B. Sheridan. Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have striving good enough to be called a failure.- -George Eliot At the Tnquest on a Mrs Klenner, victim of the Waitara shooting affair, a verdict was returned that deceased met her death by a revolver wound, inflicted by Dr Goodc.