Varieties.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 51, 13 January 1872, Page 17

Varieties.

'I wonder what causes my eyes to be so weak?' said a fop to a gentlemam. ' They are in a weak place,' replied the latter. A lady who was greatly annoyed by the loquacity of her servants, being asked why she didn't try dumb waiters, replied, ' I have tried them, but they don't answer.' Here is the free-love marriage vow as finally adopted : ' We promise to love each other, and live in the same brown stone front till we are Tired of each other, and see some one we like better.' Men make fools of women, and when they get a fool for a wife they spend the rest of their days in cursing the sex. A boys' paper in Boston advises the Humane Society to arrest all persons in the city who bottle catsup. A Providence paper talks about ' animated fragments ot shattered rainbows.' The writer means ladies. A young man who was caught pressing Jus sweetheart to his breast the other night, justi lies himself on the ground that he has a right to strain his own honey. Never interpret social maxims too literally. To ' speed the parting guest,' it is not essential that you kick him down stairs. A party of open air performers were going through their performance in the Boulevards of Paris, when one of them commenced climbing a ladder on one end, and balancing it as he ascended. On his reaching the summit a Frenchman thus addressed an Englishman : ' Ah Monsieur Anglaise, you nevar see any ting like dat in l'Angleterre, eh ?' « Oh, yes,' replied the Englishman, 'I have seen better than that. I have seen men go up a ladder blindfolded, with both feet tied.' « Ah, bon, bon, ver good.' said Frenchy ; ' den, eare, I shall tell von better dan dat. I have seen dem go up de.ladder on one side, ober de top, and come down on de oder side. Now match dat, Johnny de Bull.' 'Yes, and beat it, too,' answered the Englishman coolly, ' for I have seen them go up the ladder to the top, and then —mark what I say—and then draw up the ladder after them, and go up again.' ' Ah, oh, ah, Diable, mon Dieu!' muttered the Frenchman, as he retired from the crowd. For a specimen of logical consecution of ideas we venture to commend this, from a school boy's composition: ' Tobacco was invented by a man named Walter Raleigh. When the people first i?aw him smoking they thought he was a steamboat, and, as they had never seen a steamboat they were frightened.' 'Dr Smoothman is quite a ladies' doctor,' observed Mrs Grrantway, * So nice,' said one lady. So chatty,' said another. ' Never prescribes nasty things !' said a third. ' Oh, he's a duck !' cried an interesting young matron. 'You mean a quack,' growled her husband who had just seen the doctor's bill for one year's attendance. In a town in Ohio, not long ago, the women went in bands of two and three with their knitting and sewing into dram shops of the place, and spent the whole day with their work, and talking politely upon various topics. Husbands and friends came in, saw how things looked, and had not the courage to step to the bar and drink. This was kept up for several days and the result was every shop in the place was closed. The lack of courage of women is often sneered at. A thoughtful observer comes to their defence very effectively, as follows;-» I have

seen women so delicate that they were afraid to ride for fear of the horse running away; afraid to walk for fear the dew might fall : afraid to sail for fear the boat might upset; but I never saw one afraid- to be married, which is more riskful than all tho others pub together. A young lady of Louisville having received very urgent proposals of marriage from an old gentleman, sent the following answer by mail: Why thus urge me to compliance ? Why compel me to refuse ? Yet though I court nob your alliance, Perchance a younger I may choose. For 'tis a state I'll ne'er disparage, .Nor will I war against it wage ; I do not, sir, object to marriage, I but dislike, to marri-age. A Good Rule.—A certain man, who is very rich now, was very poor when he was a boy. When asked how he got his riches, he said, 'My father taught me never to play until my work was finished, and never to spend my money until I had earned it. If I had but au hour's work in a day, I must do that the first thing, and in an hour. And after this I was allowed to play ; and then I could play with much more pleasure than if I had the thought of an unfinished task before my mind. I early formed the habit of doing everything in time, and it soon became easy to do so. It is to this I owe my prosperity.' Let every one who reads this do likewise.