Varieties.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 28, 5 August 1871, Page 17

Varieties.

The entire assets of a bankrupt were nine children. The creditors acted magnanimously, and let him keep them. The following paragraph suggests a difficulty for the supporters of Woman’s rights:—Mrs Esther Morris, justice of the peace in lowa, has temporarily retired from the bench to nurse her baby. A man was once brought up before a magistrate charged with marrying six wives. The magistrate asked him how he could be so hardened a villian. ‘ Please your honor,’ replied the fellow, ‘I was trying to get a good one.’ ‘Sam, why am members of C ingress like de fishes ?’ I ‘ dont meddle wid de subject, Pamp.’ ‘ Why don’t you see, nigga, dc.y’s so fond of de bate.’

The Government Licensing Bill was withdrawn just in time to prevent the House of Commons from being turned into a storehouse for petitions against it. One from Birmingham was, when rolled up, as large as a beer barrel. It bore 70,000 signatures. An old sailor going to have a tooth out, told the dentist that it was —the aftermost grinder aloft on the starboard quarter. ‘ What a fine head your boy has,’ said an admiring friend. ‘ Yes,’ said the father, ‘ lie’s a chip of the old block, ain’t you, my boy!’ ‘ Yes, father,’ replied the boy, ‘ teacher said yesterday that I was a young blockhead.’ A Good Beat: The avidity with which the Parisian populace volunteered into the Garde Mobile at the beginning of the war has only been equalled by their subsequent eagerness to retrace their steps. They have been made the butts of many jokes. We subjoin the latest: A General inspecting his battallion asked a young Mobille whether he had any complaint to make. —‘Yes. general.’ —‘What is it ?’— ‘ I am suffering from palpitation of the heart.’— ‘ Good,’ was the reply ;‘ it beats for its country.’ A soldier, a patient at Herbert Hospital, Shooter’s Hill a few days ago, wrote the following advice to a comrade ‘ Previous to going to hospital rub your tongue with chalk, ready for the word, ‘ Put out your tongue ;’ then when the doctor is going to feel your pulse, be sure to kuock your elbow against the wall, and it will beat to any number in a minute ; then, if you wish to persevere to be invalided, be on the look-out for a friend to bring you a bit of raw bullock’s liver every morning, in order to spit blood for the doctor; have a little bit of the liver in your mouth, under your tongue, fresh, ready for him when he comes round the hospital ward, and have a good piece ready to spit out for him when he approaches your cot: then give a great sigh and a groan, and you are sure to be ordered lamb chops, chicken, rice pudding, port wine, Guinness’s stout —in fact you may live on the fat of the land for the remainder of your soldiering, which will not bo long: but depend upon it, you are sure of a pension, even under ten years’ service.’ We hope there are not many in hospital quite so clever as this ‘ old soldier.’—“ Medical Times.”

One dark night a burglar entered a house. On ascending one flight of stairs he observed a light in a chamber, and while deliberating what to do, a large woman suddenly seized him by the throat, pushed him down through the hall, and forced him into the street before he had time to think. ‘ Heroic repulse of a Burglar by a Woman,’ was the way in which the story appeared in the newspapers next day. But when friends called and congratulated her upon her courage, she exclaimed— ‘ Good gracious ! I didn’t know it was a burglar. If I had, I should have been frightened to death. I thought it was my husband come home inebriated again, and I was determined he shouldn’t come into my room in that condition.’ That was a convenient loss of memory which Caesar, the sable coachman, possessed. His employer, who was very zealous on the subject of horses, but not according to knowledge bought a mare at auction and rode her home. ‘Well, Caesar/ said he, ‘what do you think of her?’ ‘ Well, massa, it makes me tink of what

the preacher said yesterday something about his money is soon parted. I chsremember the fust part \ ‘X say capt’n,’ said a little eyed man, as he landed from the steamboat Petona at Natchez. ‘ I say capt’n, this ’ere am t all. * That’s all the luggage you brought on board sir,’ replied the captain. ‘Well, see now, it’s all according to list—four boxes, three chests, two ban boxes, a portmanty, to hams, one part cut—three ropes inyons, a fry pan, and a tea kettle, but I’m dubersom. I feel there’s somat short, though I’ve counted ’em nine times and never took my eves ov’em -while on board ; there’s something not right, somehow. ‘Well, stranger, times up ; there’s all I know of; bring up your wife and nine children out of the cabin and we’re off.’ Them’s-um, darn it, them’s-um! I knowed I’d forgot something.