THE GATHERER.

Patea Mail, 9 October 1880, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE GATHERER.

A WOMAN'S CUPJOSITY. The proverbial curiosity of women led to a smash-np at the Continental Colliery, near Pottaville, recently. The slope engineer went home for his dinner, and the fireman remained in the engine-house waiting for his wife to appear with his lunch. She being considerably behind time, the fireman became restless with hunger, and started for home. While he was gone, the wife, by another route, appeared in the engine-house with the dinner. The fireman not returning immediately, his wife got tired of waiting, and commenced examining _ the pictures pasted around the room. This grew monotonous, and in casting about for something else to entertain herself with, she spied the lever that starts the huge engine. She wondered what that particular piece of iron was used for. First she admired the smoothness, and then she marvelled at its cleanliness. Becoming bolder, she gave it a sudden jerk. There was a burr and whiz, and the ponderous machinery started as though animated with the breath of life. The woman clutched the lever in the hope of placing it where she found it, but, to her horror, it only increased the speed of the machinery. The drum was creaking and revolving with terrible rapidity ; the piston-rods ilew in and out of the cylinder like lightning. The steam escaping hissed like fury, and the woman, with a shriek of terror, rushed for the open air. Just then the waggon that started from the bottom when she started the machinery came out of the slope like a shot, landing oil top of the engine-house, smashing and crushing it into pieces. There was no work next day. ''American. Paper.’

A boy, whose father was rather an immoderate drinker of the moderate kind, one day sprained his wrist, and his mother utilised the whisky in her husband’s bottle to bathe the little fellow’s wrist with. After a while the pain began to abate, and the child surprised his mother by exclaiming, *Ma, has pa got a sprained throat ?’

An Awful Crammer.—Proprietor of board-ing-house (taking stout guest aside): You’ll excuse me, Mr. Sharpset, but your appetite is so large that I shall be compelled to charge you a shilling extra. It can’t be done at two shillings ! Diner : No ! For heaven’s sake don’t do that! I can eat two shilling’s worth easy ; but if I have to do three —I really—’ afraid I should-but I’ll try.—‘Punch.’

Full of his Subject.—At a meeting of Seventh-day Baptist churches in Wisconsin, two elergymeum were to present papers on the same day, and the question of precedence having arisen, Mr. A sprang to his feet and said ; ‘ I think Brother B. ought to have the best place on the programme; he is an older man than I am, and, besides, is full of his subject.’ When the audience remembered that Brother B.’s subject was ‘ The Devil,’ a cheerful smile seemed to beam around the church.

Thrift.—Brown (with an eye to economy): I will wear the new hat, then, and leave my old one to be done up. Shopman ; Done up! About done up already, isn’t it, sir ? Fun.

A Lift Wanted. —An ambitious young writer having asked, * What magazine will give me the highest position quickest?’ was told, • A powder magazine, if you contribute a fiery article. ’ A Generous Offer Rejected. —He did not have the right kind of a face to inspire confidence, and his clothes looked like they had served a third term, at least. ‘ Are you the fellow who makes fun of people in the ‘News?” The newspaper man owned up he was ' thar or tharabouts.’ ‘ Well, I come to warn you. They are layin’ for you with clubs. They are bad.’ ‘Not to hurt I reckon.’ ‘Yes they are; but don’t be afeared. I’m your friend, I can stave my fist through a man, and wait off with him on my arm, just like he was an empty market basket.’ ‘Oh, get out.’ ‘l’m not joking. lam your friend, and I’m down on your enemies. Look here—can’t you lend a Teller a quarter ? temporarily only, of course.’ ‘ Now, you look here. Didn’t you just now say you were my friend ?’ ‘So I am.’ ‘ You don’t talk like it, but I’ll take you at your word.’ ‘Jest count on me,’ ‘ You said you want to help me, and you want to hurt my enemies ?’ ‘ That’s about the size of it.’ * Then you go and borrow a quarter from them, and loan it to me. ’ — Adjourned.—Galveston News.’

Concerning the now celebrated ‘fifteen gem puzzle,’ which an up-country vendor says has furnished more inmates for the lunatic asylums of America than any other subject of the age, the ‘ Scientific American’ says ; The ‘fifteen puzzle epidemic, which prevailed so alarmingly here last year, has extended to England and the .Continent, and our foreign exchanges come to us laden with solutions of the problem. Scientists even have taken the subject up, and communicate to their favourite papers the formula which expresses the mathematical possibilities of it, and editors write columns on the subject for their respective papers. It was a good while reaching the other side of the ocean, but, like the phylloxera, is doing its devastating work, fj