MISCELLANEOUS.

North Otago Times, Volume II, Issue 29, 8 September 1864, Page 1 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS.

The « New York Evening Post," calling attention to the mad extravagance of the day, says : — " A man builds a marble stable at the rear of his lot, at a cost of 8,000dols. T and fits up a private theatre over it. Another pars 8,000dols., for a pair of horses to drive on the road for his pleasure ; and many give from l,500dols. to 3,000rtols., for the same object-. Another provides a dinner for a dozen friends — rejecting the old superstition of the unlucky 1 3 —and this simple dinner costs l,000dols. A children's party is given in an up-town house, where ever) child is clad entirely in dresses imported from Paris. An American citizen purchases a house for over I00,000dols., and tears it down to rebuild upon its site one yet more costly. These are signs of the times ; are they not evidences of a state of things unhealthfu 1 , feverish, threatening to the honest simplicity of our political life, and threatening not less evil to the ideas and the piinciples of which that life has hitherto been a fair exponent V The New York correspondent of the " Boston Journal,"' says that all sorts of manoeuvres are resorted to in order to obtain a first-class mansion. An exmayor of the city was drawn into conversation about his residence by two ladies, and foolishly said he should like to see 30,000dols. for it, and offered to sell it for that sum. Tiie offer wa^ snapped at directly. The next day it was re-sold for 40,000dols. His honor has been rendered a little unquiet by this transaction. Somebody has made 10,000dols. out of him. He has been turned into the street. Getting a fashionable residence has not proved easy. Nothing remained but the overcrowded Fifth Avenue Hjtel. He u. now with his family in the attic storey, waiting for something to turn up. Put it through the Keyhole. — A halffamished fellow in the Southern States tella of a baker (whose loaves had been growing '' small by degrees and beautifully less") who, when going his rounds to serve hig customers, stopped at the door of one and knocked, when the lady within exclaimed, " Who's there V and when answered. " The baker." " What do you want 1" " To leave your bread." " Well, you needn't make such a fuss about it — put it through the kevhole." A gentleman who took occassion on the Sabbath to doctor some cider, was taken to task by his good wife for laboring on that day. His reply was that no good Christian ought to find fault with his work, as he had been doing his best to prevent his cider from working. An apprentice one day after dinner deliberately stepped up to his master and asked him what he valued his services at per day. " About sixpence," said his master. " WelL then," said the boy, putting his hand into his pocket, and drawing out some coppers, " here's threepence ; I'm off on the spree." A lawyer on cross-examining a witness, asked him among other questions, where he was on a particular day to which he replied, " In company with two friends." " Friends !" exclaimed the lawyer ; " two thieves I suppose you mean." " They may be so," replied the witness, "for they are both lawyers." A Berlin letter in the ' Press ' of Vienna states that at a late review a dragoon whose girths had given way, kept in the ranks, and rode through the manoeuvres without a saddle. The fact having come to the king's knowledge, he said to his aid-de-camp, ' Say nothing about it, gentlemen ; if the Chambeia were to hear of it, they would strike out saddles from the war estimates.' An American auctioneer announces that he haa so much business, that he has already worn out two hammers, and is on the second end of the third. A man is the healthiest and happiest when ho thinks the least of either health or happiness. To forget an ill is half the battle ; it Ieave3 easy work for the doctors. Pride — A concealed vanity, a hidden humor. A growing aching tumor, that the owner tries to peisuade himself is muscle. There is more sunshine than rain, more joy than pain, more love than hate, more smiles than tears. Those who say the contrary we would not choose for our friends. The most sensual man that ever was in the world never felt his heart touched with so delicious and lasting a plea&ure as that which springs from a clear conscience, and a mind fully satisfied with its own actions. If the tips of a man's fingers are three fe<-t from his shoulders, he is furnished, like a ship, with a yard-arm. Of all the actions of a man's life his marriage least coucerns other people, yet of all the actions of his life it is most meddled with. A letter from Naples says : — • Standing on Castle Elmo, I drank in the whole sweep of the bay.' What a swallow the writer must have had! An Ohio paper, after announcing that a deaf man had been run down by a passenger train, said, ' He was injured in a similar way a year ago.' A short man became attached to a tall woman, and some body said he had fallen in love with her. ' Do you call it falling in love V said the suitor ; ' it is more like climbing up to it.' New Paragraphs— As the weddings of the aristocracy are chronicled under the title of " Marriage in High Life," we would suggest that the demise of such persons should likewise be announced under the heading of "Death in High, Life "—Fun. Many a judge has passed hundreds of sentences, who could never parse one. A man hearing of another who was an hundred years old, said contemptuously, '• Pshaw ! what a fuss about nothing ! Why, if my grandfather was alive he would now be a hundred and fifty years old." The last case of indolence is that of a man named John Hole, who was so lazy that in wi iting his name he simply used the letter " J," and then punched a hole through the paper. A Wit at his Census Return— An eccentric genius in Inverness, who lives in a house which he calls a castle, gave the following answers to the queries in his census paper. Uuder the heading " Domestic servants, lodgers and visitors," he wrote : — " Plenty of mice, and lots of rats, A nice young dog, and two young cats." Under the head " Age," was written : — " I will not swear that I am fifty, Though growing old, and also thrifty." His castle he describes as consisting of " one room, one window, one door, and thirty airholes." Happy man ! He io evidently a philosopher as well as a w it