HUMOR AND SATIEE.

Southland Times, Issue 1308, 16 September 1870, Page 3

HUMOR AND SATIEE.

We are often forced to laugh at trifles, and the mind receives the benefit, while taste and judgment protest against the recognition of froth and bubble, of silly speech and empty thought. Sir Boyle Eoche said he " would not do anything for posterity, because posterity had done nothing for him — and by posterity I mean," said he, " not our ancestors, but those who preceded them." He is the author of the following figure of speech : — " I smell a rat, I see him floating in the aiiyand I will. nip him. in the bud." The "Commoners" must have had a good laugh over that 'speech, but they did not laugh at its wit. Some of them, doubtless, failed to see anything funny in the blunders of the Irish Member of Parliament. In all countries and in all ages there are men into whose thick skulls you cannot get an idea without performing a surgical operation ; they are living dead men. Swedenborg says, " Some men have been dead a hundred years and have not found it out yet." Oiiyer Wendell Holmes saya, " Some men are like the Frankenstein monster, too stupid to make a blunder," and they ard too stupid to see anything ludicrous in the blunders or in the wit of others — but those who do " see the point," and laugh heartily, get their reward. There often is a nucleus of truth within the nebula of witticism. Lord Erskine (pointing to the seals of office) told Lord Eldon that " seals afforded a good living." " Parties are like snakes," said Eobert Walpole, " their heads are always pushed forward by their tails." I think it was one of the editors of the World who said, " We will share the fortunes of war with the noble army of contractors." A sarcastic orator said that " the prairies are great green sieves, through which the Indians are sifted into hell." A man who had broken hia pledge of abstinence excused himself on the ground that no stamp had been affixed to the oath when he took it. "To what sect does that man belong?" inquired one person of another — referring to a very small mean man. "To the insects," was the answer. A critic, speaking of a garrulous woman, said " Her organ of speech is an organ without stops." The following epitaphs may be considered grave jokes, but I will use them, nevertheless.. A Dr Fuller died, and the following epitaph was inscribed upon his tombstone : — " Fuller's earth." A lawyer of the name of Strange had these words put upon his headstone : — " An honest lawyer — Strange." " Here lies an editor," was the unflattering epitaph of a brother of the quill. " Some books," ; said a wag, v like acts of Congress, are merely read by their titles and then passed." " Can I leave tracts at your door ?" inquired a missionary of a cynical unbeliever. " Tes, sir," said he, " with the toes towards the gate." Sally, looking down from the window upon one of her master's customer*, said, " We have all been converted, and when you want whisky on Sundays, you must come in at the back door."— The American and Continental Monthly.