WIT AND HUMOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 12 October 1907, Page 3

WIT AND HUMOR.

A judge on a trip one stormy night ! knocked against a well-known witty lawyer who was suffering terribly from i sea-sickness. "Can I do anything for you?" said the judge. "Yes," gasped ihe sea-sick lawyer; "I wish your lordship would overrule this motion." Brown: You can't eat? Why, what's j the matter with you? Jones:' Well, to be perfectly frank with you, I'm so . much in love i don't feel like eating 'anything. Brown: After you marry the girl you'll be the same way, only it will j he indigestion then. I A Scot entered a hosier's shop and .said: "I want to buy a necktie." The : nhoj) assistant said, "Certainly, sir; here is a tie that is being very much worn.' ! The .Scot replied: "But I iliima want ami that's very muckle worn. I've plenty ! m them al haine!"

"I trust yum- honor will excuse melius time," said Hie habitual drunkard at the police court; "it is my misfortune—l am a child of genius." "And what is your age?' asked the magistrate. "Forty-two years," "Then it is nine you were weaned. You'll have to do fourteen days away from the bottle." Lady: Are you sure these scats are the best you have they are not behind a pillar are they is it a good view of the stage I'll take them then on perhaps you have something better in the balcony something in the centre of the house all sold out isn't that mean you're sure of that well what have you «ot tor Friday night? Jn the cook's absence the young mistress of (he house undertook, with the help of a green waitress, to get the Sunday luncheon. The flurried maid. who had been struggling in the kitchen with a coffee machine that refused to work, confessed that she had forgotten to wash the lettuce. "Well, never mind Eliza. Go on with the coffee, and I'll' do it," said the considerate mistress. "Where do you keep the soap?" In the famous chained library of Wnnborne Minster there is a copy of Sir Walter Raleigh's "History of the World," of which an interesting story is told. Matthew Prior, the poet, while studying it, fell asleep, and upset the candle, by the light of which he was reading. A, hole was burnt through nearly one hundred pages. When Prior awoke his dismay may be imagined, but he resolved to repair the injury. Over each hole he neatly pasted a piece of paper, and then, with pen and ink, restored the text with the utmost care and delicacy. .Mrs Bacon: "Did little Willie have a good time at the party?" Mrs Egbert: "He couldn't tell us when he got home, but the doctor we called in said he thought he must have had."

3 certain European regiment stationed in northern India has a colonel -who has only once been seen to laugh. A private ol his corps, while a prisoner in the guardroom for a military offence, bet the sergeant of the guard five rupees that he would make the commanding oeer laugh when he was taken before him. In due course, after reading the charge, the colonel asked the prisoner, "Have you anything to say?" "I won't say anything more about it, sir, if_ you won't," was the unexpected reply. The grim face relaxed, but the stern decision came all the same—"Fourteen days confined to barracks." Ethel was obviously fishing for a compliment. "X wonder," she mused, -'what lie saw in me to fall in love with!" "That's what everybody says. But men are curious creatures, dear!" was her friend's response.

"1 suppose," he ventured, "that you would never speak to me again if I were to kiss you?" "0, John!" she exclaimed, "why don't you get over the habit of always looking at the dark side of things?" Jackson: "I remember your wife as such a dainty and pretty little thing. Hunily, and yet they tell me she has turned out sucli a fine cook," Milton: "Turned out a fine cook? She has turned out half a dozen of them within the last months." Manager: "We must put a great deal of realism into this forest scene. Can you get someone to growl so as to resemble a bear?" Assistant: "I think so. There are six or seven chorus men who have not received their wages for three weeks. I'll call them."

Old Practitioner: "Well, how did you succeed with your first diagnosis. Did you profit by my advice?" The young doctor: "I think I did sir. I told the patient that he was suffering from a combination of liver, stomach, heart, lung, and brain trouble." 0. P.: "Good! No chance of a mistake there.?'

"A drop of ink may make a million think," quoted McSwilligen. "So I have heard," added Spuilldig. "It may provoke language, too. A few drops of ink that 1 inadvertently dropped on the new carpet brought forth about a million words, and all energetic words, too," Briggs (indignantly): "I understood you said I never opened my month without putting my foot in it." Diggs (apologetically) : ''Yes, I believe I did sav that; but—" "But what, sir." "But 1 acknowledge my mistake. When I made that remark I had overlooked the size of vour feet."

Some time ago an Irish recruiter was giving a lecturer on the advantages of the Army. His speech was all very well until he said: "Look at me. When 1 joined the Army I hadn't a rag to my back, an' now I'm covered • with 'em." A sergeant was trying to lick into shape a dozen of the rawest recruits, and one morning, having marched the men out to the drill ground, he proceeded with the customary business. "Eyes right!" shouted the sergeant's husky throat. "So's I," came back at once from about half of the recruits, and business had to be temporarily suspended. " Once a Scotsman was visiting New York, and, coming across a statue of Washington, stood gaping at it. Just then a Yankee eanio up, and said to Sandy: "There's a good roan. A lie never passed his lips." "No,' said the Scotsman; "I suppose he talked through his nose, like the rest of you." An old man in a small mining town in the North was well known fpr his miserly habits. One night he was taking a walk, when he came upon a small boy weeping bitterly, Upon being asked what was the matter, the boy replied: "My father sent me to post a letter, and I've lost the penny for the stamp, and he'll beat me when I gut home." "Tut! tnt!" said the old man. as he put his hand in his, pocket, while the boy, who knew him, looked up expectantly. "Here's a match—look for it."

Two little girls were attracted by a highly-colored portrait of the King, which was being exhibited in a shop window, and one of them, unacquainted with the Royal features, inquired of her companion: "What picture is this."

"Do ve no ken liim?" asked the other. "That's the King." "What is he!' persisted No. 1, still in blissful ignorance of his Majesty's identity. "Oh! just the King," was the reply. "Is he well on"?" "Is he no?" "What does he do for a living?" asked No. 1. '-Oh, he sells stamps wHli to picture on them," was the reply. An old lady visiting an "asylum took a great interest in the inmates,and made herself as pleasant as possible to every-I one. "And how long have you been here, my man?" she. asked a mild-look- I ing old' gentleman. "Twelve years, ma'am." "And do they treat you well?' "Oh, yes! I can't complain when I consider what might have been," was the response. Then the kind-hearted old lady saw a smile on the face of the attendant who was showing her round. And no wonder! The philanthropic lady visitor had mistaken the doctor for one of the inmates. She hurried up to the medical man and made her apologies. "Oh, doctor," she said, "I am sn sorry! It has taught me a lesson. I will never be governed by appearances again." A babv boy at Orange, New Jersey, has been christened "Czar Alphonso Roosevelt Edward John McCory."

AN INFANT MODEL. As an illustration of the old saying that "doctors will .differ," the following is related by a physician of unquestioned veracity:'—ln the course of a lecture which he wan delivering before a number of students he had brought in by the mother of a child six months old, which, he stated, was suffering from a very peculiar affection—one seldom seen in this country—and he requested five of the students present each separately to diagnose the ease. The first gave it as his medical belief that the child was suffering from incipient pneumonia: the second, after examination, pronounced it incipient diphtheria; the third stalced his reputation upon it heingperitonitis; the fourth called it marasmus, while the fifth said it was "malaria." When they had each, made a careful ex- I ambition" the lecturer said:—"Well, gentlemen, have you anything further to say in regard to the case?" "Nothing more, than has been already said." was the reply from each. "Well," said I ho, taking tlie little one and holding :< up before them, "this is a child that has never bad a clay's illness since its birth. It is the most perfectly healthy guild, that I liaYß «v«r seen."