Varieties.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 43, 18 November 1871, Page 16

Varieties.

How to find steady employment —Get inside a prison. People who go about hacking and ether people’s characters rarely have any of their own.

A poor gardener who wanted, to know the best way to start a little nursery, was advised to get married. A bachelor, according to the latest definition, is a man who has lost the opportunity of making a woman miserable. Mrs Eddy, of Lincoln, caught her better half kissing the servant girl. The doctor was sent for. He says he can patch up Mr Eddy s face but he’ll always be bald-headed. A school-girl was recently asked, at an examination, by the clergyman, to tell him what Adam lost by his fall, and when pressed she replied, ‘ I suppose it was his liat.’ A man was told that three yards of cloth, by being wet, would shrink a quarter of a yard. ‘ Well, then/ he inquired, ‘if you should wet a quarter of a yard, would there be any left ?’ Conjugal Reflection. —A woman with two heads may be found to be attractive. But conceive, says Mr Phunky, a wife having two tongues ! Woe betide the husband who yields to her attractiveness.

Johnny Pleywood, of Milwaukee, is of a scientific turn of mind. He experimented with a burning glass on a package of powder. Johnny is now at home waiting fora new skm to grow over liis face and hands.

J The following was found posted on the wall of a country post office : —‘ Lost —a red kaf. He had a white spot on 1 of his behind leggs. He was a she kaf. I will give tlire sliillins to evriboddi wot will bring liym horn.’ Ata Sunday school a teacher asked alittle boy if he knew what the expression ‘ sowing tares’ meant. ‘ Course I does,’ said lie, pointing to his little breeches. ‘ There’s a tear mother sewed. I teared it sliding down hill.’ A French child said to a parish priest £ ‘ Why is it, my father, that we ask every day for our daily bread, instead of asking our bread for a week, a month, or a whole year ?’ £ Why, you little goose, so as always to have it fresh.’ Mark Twain thinks that soda-water, as a beverage, is much too gassy. The next morning after swallowing thirty-eight bottles, he found himself full of gas and tight as a balloon. He could wear no article of clothing but an umbrella. The other day a gentleman entered a hotel, and, finding, that the person who appeared to act as waiter could not give him certain information which he wanted, put the question, ‘Ho you belong to the establishment ?’ to which Jeames replied, * No, sir; I belong to the Free Kirk.’ A Ready Reply.—A Sunday school teacher was giving a lesson on Ruth. She wanted to bring out the kindness of Boaz in commanding the reapers to drop larger handfuls of wheat. ‘ Now, children,’ she said, ‘ Boaz did another very nice thing for Rutli! can you tell me what it was ?’ ‘Married her/ said one of the boys. A temperance lecturer, descanting on the superior advantages of cold water, remarked, ‘ When the world had become so corrupt that the Lord could do nothing with it, He was obliged to give it a thorough sousing with cold | water.’ ‘ Yes/ replied a toper present; ‘ but it killed every living critter on the face of the earth.’ Incorrigible.—An old man of Aberdeen who had been henpecked all his life, was visited on his deathbed by a clergyman. The old man appeared very indifferent, and the parson tried to arouse him by talking of the King of Terrors. ‘Houf, tout, man, I’m no scaur’t. The King o’ Terrors! I’ve been living sax and thirty years with the Queen o’ them, and the King canna be nxuckle waur.’ Swearing—‘Mother,’ said a sharp little boy, ‘ is it wicked to say damn V ‘ Certainly, my son —that would be swearing!’ ‘But is it wicked to say coffer-dam ?’ ‘ Oh, no, my son ; that is the name of an inanimate object, like a house or a table.’ ‘Well mother/ responded the young hopeful, ‘the old cow has got a potato in her throat, and I thought she would coffer-dam head off.’

‘Now,'children,’ saida Sunday school gentleman visitor, who had been talking to the scholars about ‘ good’ people and ‘ bad’ people —‘ now children, when I am walking in the street 1 speak to some persons I meet and don’t speak to others, what is the reason ?’ He expected the reply would be, ‘ Because some are good and others bad;’ but, to liis discomfiture, the shout was, ‘ Because some are rich and others poor .’ Mythological Research. —A young lover called liis girl a ‘ sweet fawn/ and the next day the simple minded lass discovered in one of her old school books that ‘faun’ was the name given to the Roman deities, which were guardians of the woods, that their form was much like the human body, but they had a short goat’s tail and large horns. The next interview between the couple was short and not very sweet. A lad having a letter for the person of the name of Dunn, asked a wag near an eatinghouse if he could tell him where to find Mr Dunn. The wag told him to go to the eatinghouse, and the person at the first table was the gentleman he was inquiring for. The lad went in This ‘ first gentleman’ happened to be an Irishman ‘Are you Dunn?’ said the boy. ‘ Done !’ replied Pat, ‘by my soul, lam only jist begun.’ How’s ’tis for cats ? If a cat doth meet a cat upon a garden wall, and if a cat doth greet a cat, O need the both to squall? Every Tommy has his Tabby waiting on the wall, and yet he welcomes her approach always with a yawl. And if a kitten wish to court upon the garden wall, why don’t he sit and sweetly smile, and not stand up and bawl; lift liis precious back up high, and show his teeth and moan, as if ’twere oolie more than love that made that fellow groan ?—American paper.

An Interesting Event. —The following is from a Dunedin contemporary :—A marriage of a kind as yet rare in Otago took place yesterday. The parties to the contract were a dashing young Chinaman, engaged in market gardening and selling cabbages and lettuce, and a European, a blooming young damsel of twenty summers, whose beauty, it is presumed, had touched the tender heart that beat beneath an Asiatic skin. It may be stated that yesterday forenoon two carriages dashed up to the Kegistrar’s office. From them, surrounded by an admiring crowd, stepped forth the bridegroom, bridesmaids, and groomsmen. The bride, the bridesmaids, and a European groomsman were dressed in the orthodox wedding costume, and, altogether “ elegantly got up.” The bridegroom and the two Chinese groomsmen were equally resplendent. They entered the Eegistrar’s office, the crowd forming a guard of honor along the passage leading thereto, and before the Begistrar, Mr Street, the knot was tied. The deed being done, they entered the carriages and drove off. Later in the day the house of the happy pair was literally besieged by intrusive youngsters, who, uninvited, came to congratulate them upon the event.