MISCELLANEOUS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 15, 29 November 1883, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

A "sweet girl-graduate” wrote the following on the fly-leaf of her text-book on moral science: "if there should be another flood, For refuge hither fly; Though all the world should be submerged, this book would still be dry.” “ Polly," said a lady to her servant, " I wish you would step over and see how old Mrs Jones is this morning.” Iu a few minutes Polly returned with the information that Mrs. Jones was seventy-two years four months, and twenty-eight days old. ’ Two men who had taken more than was cod for them were spending an hour over a social glass. "Smith, old man,” said one to the other, grasping him by the hand and shaking it warmly, "I’veknown you for the last twenty years, aud we have been very good friends ; but I’ve never liked you Lord Derby is not supposed to be given to joking ; but he is credited with the following witty observation to a brother peer who was complaining of the coldness of the House of Lords whenever he addressed it:—“ I am becoming accustomed to it, but at first I felt like speaking to gravestones in a cemetery.” In an article on “New Zealand’s Progress,” written in a spirit of affectionate concern, though in a somewhat pessimist vein, the Scotsman recently expressed an opinion adverse to the bold, and as it believes, “ rash ” Public Works policy of Sir Julius Vogel. It thinks that New Zealand has paid dearly for discounting its future, but considers that it possesses a heritage so rich that it can even afford to be somewhat spendthrift in its youth, if it only draws the proper lessons from its errors.