WIT AND HUMOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 11, 6 February 1909, Page 3

WIT AND HUMOR.

1 TUO .Ul'Cil KOO.U. | -iit hr„l sight it would seem that it "lost be an unreasonable man ,wbo would hnd fault with a house because it had one more room than was 111011I tioned iu the advertisement; but first °'g always the. best sight. A., cuaie agent sent a customer to look at a live-loomed house, that being just the Size he pupfcMcd fo want. Ihc house pio\cd to be sadly out of repair, and the prospective tenant, went back to the agent's ollict. 1 d.du I want a six-roomed house," he .-aid. lhat jVn t a six-roomed house," answered the agent. "Ves, it is." But 1 say it is nut," and the agent began counting. "There's the kitchen, dining-roum, parlor,- and two bedroom*. That's live, isn't \iV' but there's the rouni for improvement, and that's bigger than any of the others," said the facetious custoim r. "Can't you show me something else r

"limes are changed/' said Mark Twain, speaking of Washington. -J doubt if nowadays a man of Washington's unswerving integrity would . be able to .get on. "A rich lawyer, after dinner the other night. umil into his den for a smoke, lie took down from his pipe-rack a superb meerschaum, a birthdav present from his wife; bul, alas! as he started to lill the pipe, it came apart in Ins hands. The bowl had been broken in two ami then carelessly stuck together, j "With loud growls of rage the lawyer rushed from his deu and 'demanded 'o know who had broken liis new meerschaum. His only son, a boy of eleven, spoke up bravely. "'Father,' he said, 4 1 cannot tell a lie. T did it.' "The lawyer praised the lad's Washingtonian veracity, but that slight on his pillow lie groaned and went oil terribly about the incident. "'Heaven help me/ he said, 'lt had been my life's dearest to rear up my son to my own profession, but now

The principal of a West Country coi- , leg«s in a talk before the student body, was deploring the practice common among children of getting help in their le-jsons. and the tendency among parents to give it too generously. As an illustration he told the following incident: The mother of a small pupil in a Richmond school had struggled through the problems assigned for the child's next lesson, and had iiaally obtained what appeared to be satisfactory results. The next day, when the little girl returned from school, the mother enquired, with some curiositv:

"Were your problems correct, dear?" '*Xo, mauuna," replied the child. 1 "They were all .wrong." "All wrong?" repeated the amazed parent. "'Oh, I'm so sorry." "Well, mamma, you don't need to be sorry," was the reply. "All the other mammas had theirs wrong, too." •"Your dead husband wor u good man," declared the sympathetic Mrs. Casey to the bereaved widow. '"He wor!'' exclaimed Mrs. Murphy, dashing the tears from her eyes. ''Xo two policemin cud handle him." ''The gentleman you just bowed to is an artist, isn't he?" asked a girl who, with a companion, was "taking the air" iu Piccadilly. '•Yes, u great artist," replied the other. |

I "Yuu divined his profession from his I linely-chiselled features, I presume?" "No." responded,, the first speaker; "I I sailled the turpentine." "What started the riot at tile performance of ilamlet' last night?" "Why,-Hamlet held tile skull and said: "Alas, poor Yorick! You are not the only deadhead iu the house/" "Did your ancestors have a family tree, -\lr. Maguire?" "Family tree, is it. ma'am? One of me ancestors controlled th' iutire privilege of the Garden of Eden." "1 didn't see you at school last Sabbath," said the good man. '•Didn't you?" replied little Johnny.' "Well, you needn't think you're so blamed smart -on that account. There was a whole lot more people didn't sec me tfcere, either." lie watched his six-hundred-pound ho-use go up in llaines. "This," he exclaimed, "is what I call a really satisfactory house-warming." For it so happened that lie had succeeded in insuring it for JJ7UO only two days before. . .Missionary : And do you know nothing whatever of religion V Cannibal : Well, we got a taste of it when the last missionary was here. Given the sentence to correct '" ft was me that broke t.v window," a combative lad wrote, It wasn't me that broke the window."

Parents have a dread of school teachers in the wayback, and many are the excuses thev make for their bairns' absence from school. One ran this wise:— " Please tiiir, mister, will you excuse Charlee not been to school as he as got no trousers, and is father wont let him come without yours tmdey, Mr* a.- ■" Mrs Wise : J. don't see why you men don't go lislting more in the winter time | than in summer.' 5 Mr Wise : "What put that foolish; notion in your head V' i Mrs Wise : "That's a sensible notion.' There's no excuse for drinking whisky ill winter time than in summer." An Irish member, speaking of suicide, declared : "The only way to stop it is i to make it a capital offence, punishable 1 with death." Mary had a little lamb ; Its llecce was black as soot And into Mary's cup of milk Jt put its dirty foot. Then Mary —a straightforward girl, Who hated any shamHapped out a naughty little word That rymed with Mary's lamb.