BULLS AND BLUNDERS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8716, 16 January 1907, Page 1

BULLS AND BLUNDERS.

Following are extracts from an amusing book with the above title ; Ireland, of course, is responsible for a good deal of the unconscious humour as for instance ; “ Lost, near Tipperary, on or about Tuesday last, a large pig. Had no marks on his cars except a short tail and a slight limp in one leg.” Or again:— “ ‘ ’Tintion ! ’ exclaimed a sergeant to his platoon; ‘ front face, and 'tind to roll-call. As many as is present will say “ Here!” and as many as is not present will say ‘ Absent 1 ” ’ ” Or yet again, this pathetic plea of an Irish attorney, defending a prisoner : “ Gentlemen of the jury, think of hi* poor mother—his only mother ! ” But Ireland i* not the only jigmaker in Mr Brown’s company. This seems to hail from America : “ Judge: One year and 50 dollars fine. “ Prisoner’s Lawyer: I would like to make a motion to hare that sentence reversed. Judge : All right. Fifty years, and one dollar fine.’ And the following from the Far West, whore a negro preacher begins his discourse : “ I take my tcx’ dis morning from dat po’tion ob de Scriptures whar de Postol Paul pints his pistol to de Fesions." As also this : "And now let us pray for the people on the uninhabited portions of the earth." But the following is an example to all English compositors of the importance of punctuation : A compositor in setting up the toast, ‘ Woman ; without her, man would be a savage,’ put the comma in the wrong place, making the sentence read: ■ Woman, without her man, would be a savage.’ " While the omission of another comma after the word apoplexy played havoc with the following report:— “ Deceased came to his death by excessive drinking, producing apoplexy in the minds of the jury.” Finally, this scintillation of editorial humour may well have helped the editor through a tiring day : “ Dear Sir, —Please inform a constant reader how to cure bunions in to-day’s issue.” “There are no bunions in to-day’s issue, nor in yesterday’s, nor in tomorrow’s, nor in any that is to come, and were you a careful as well as a constant reader you would have grasped this fact without being told.”