MISCELLANEOUS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2702, 16 November 1881, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The standing armies of Europe number over 2,100,000 men.

The true way for a woman to drive a nail is to aim the blow square at her thumb. Then she’ll avoid hitting her thumb, anyway. An exchange speaks of a “ rich heiress.” When a young man makes up his mind to marry an heiress, we advise him to select a rich one. A poor heiress is u delusion and a snare and a hollow mockery.

Germany boasts of a considerable number of newspapers, there being no less than 4413 in circulation at the end of last year. Of these ninety-eight were started before the present century. He was n little verdant, or he never would have said : “ Perhaps we had better walk on till we come to a settee where we can sit together.” “Oh ! no,” she replied sweetly, “ you sit down in the chair and I will be the settee. ’ A short time since two young ladies near Camberwell were accosted by a gipsy woman, who told them that for a shilling she would show them their husband’s faces in a pail of water ; which being brought, they exclaimed : “We only see our own faces!” “ Well,” said the old woman, “ those faces will be your husbands’ when you are married.”

The teacher bad grown eloquent in picturing to his pupils the beauties of heaven, and he finally asked—“ Wbat kind of little boys go to heaven?” < A lively four-year-old boy, with kicking hoots, flemished his fist. “Well, you may answer,’said the teacher. “Dead ones! the little fellow shouted to the full extent of his lungs.

A man who was up before an Austin Justice for stealing a ham from the front door of a grocery store, raised up his hand and called on all the saints to witness his innocence. “Go on with the trial,” said the Justice, “ we can’t send all the way to Palestine for witnesses.”

A rather seedy-looking customer came into a restaurant on Austin Avenue and asid to the proprietor : “ What do you sak for nicely cooked beefsteak, well done, with onions?” “25 cents.” “And the gravy.” “ Oh, we don’t charge anything for gravy.” “You don’t. That’s liberal. How do you charge for the bread?” “We throw in the bread.” “Is it good bread ?” “It is.” “So you throw in the bread and gravy ?” “Certainly,” “Then bring me some bread and gravy. It is not healthy to eat meat in summer.”

The Russian papers publish terrible details of the diphtheria epidemic in Russia, which is stated far to exceed in intensity and in the extent of its range all the previous visits of this disease, so peculiarly fatal to the young. In certain communes and parishes it is reported to have carried off all the children up to fifteen years of age. In Pultowa, a province of considerably less than two millions of inhabitants, there have been 43,543 cases, of which no fewer than 18,765 have proved fatal. Not long since, Gus de Smith took a stroll through the Austin graveyard. When he came out of the graveyard he looked very serious. Gilhooly, meeting him, asked him what was the matter. “ Nothing, only I was thinking that the Austin husbands must have lit all the fires in the mornings,” “ What makes you think so ?” “ I see so many of them were burned to death. I noticed on three or four tombstones, ‘ Peace to his ashes.’ ”