ALLEGED HUMOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1915, Page 9

ALLEGED HUMOUR.

SENSATION IN CHURCH. The following story is told at the expense of » well-known Birmingham vicar;— The reverend gentleman in question is in the habit of repeating certain of his sentences several times over, to enable ( th« congregation to thoroughly grasp their meaning. During one of his icnnous recently preached in one of the poorer districts he came to Dhe following words; "Who was John the Baptist?" He spoke them slowly and distinctly, and then repeated them. He then paused, and, after glancing round the church, once more spoke the words: "Who was John the Baptist?" He was rather .surprised when a seedy individual at the back of the church shuffled to his feet and smilingly remarked : "Look here, guv'nor. I know there's a catch somewhere, but come on, who was he?" HER WICKED LITTLE SCHEME. The young man who read the papers ha<l a nine seat in the tramcar. He had noticed that day the story of the young man who had given up hid seat to a lady several years before ami was remembered in her will to the extent of £IO,OOO. As he entered the car he heard a woman expostulating with the conductor. There was no scat for her. As she passed the young man she dropped a bankbook. The young man picked it up, and quite by accident noticed that it showed a balance of £50,000. The young man gave the lady the bank-book and smiled. "It never fails to work," she murmured. WARNING TO VEGETARIANS. A young lad 'had presented himself at a butcher's shop, and when the burly proprietor appeared gave a small order, "You don't buy so much meat now as you did," remarked the butcher. "No," responded the lad; it's because father has become a vegetarian." "Well, my lad," came the grave retort, "you give your father warning from me that, as a rule, vegetarians come to a violent and untimely end. Take a bullock—'e'a a vegetarian. Wot's the result? Why. Ys cut off sudden—in his very prime!" WHAT SANDY SAID. A group of Scottish lawyers were gathered round a brew of toddy one evening. The conversation turned upon a question of pronunciation. ' "Now, I always say 'neether,'" one of the lawyers said in discussing the pronunciation of the word "neither." "I say 'nayther,'" remarked another lawyer. Turning to a third, he asked; "What do you say, Sandy?" Sandy, whose was a little muddled by too many helpings of toddy, woke up from a gentle doze. "Me?" he said. "Oh, I say whusky." CHEAP AT THE PRICE. Blinkers was not a beauty. His calve? .frere too flabby for cavalier costume, his arms were too thin for the garb of ancient Vikings, his face too reminiscent of a disappointed, lemon to admit of any heroic headgear. Everybody wondered, therefore, what be would appear as at the Funnyboy's fancy dress ball. The night arrived. Hamlet leaned sadly against a wall, while William the Conqueror threw bitter glances at a crowd at the other end of the room, "What ho, Bill!" cried Oliver Cromwell, arriving late. "Feeling seedy, old man ?" ''We all arc," growled Bill the First. "Biinkers has done us in the eye, after all." ''Blinkers? How?" "He's come as a Bargain, marked down to one-and-eleven-threo," croaked the Conqueror, "and every blessed girl in the place is fighting to get near him." "How bright and 'happy May looks since her engagement." "Yes; a match usually lights up a igirl's face." Spigot: Johnson ran his motor into a building yesterday. Faucet: Dear me! A shop? •S'pigot: No; a garage! "Why, Willie, you don't seem to be enjoying yourself." "No, uncle; I'm having a miserable time. Auntie told me to eat as much as I-wanted—and I can't!" "This play in its intensity," said the go-out-between-t'he-acts young man, "fairly takes my breath away." "I only wish it would!" gloomily remarked the lady in the next seat. Teacher: Johnny Jimson, why were you not at school yesterday ? (Pupil: Please, ma'am, i was convalescin'. Teacher (in surprise): From what, pray? Pupil: Three apple-dumpl'in's an 1 a packet of cigarettes. "I. sometimes wish I were a mermaid .beneath the dark blue sea!" exclaimed the romantic woman. "And so do I, my dear," replied her husband, who had just been treated to a long curtain lecture; "then yon would have to keep your mouth closed or drown!'' 'Mrs. Dearborn: You say that is Mrs. Burke-Martin ? Mrs. Wabash: Yes; Burke was her name and Martin was her husband's name. Mrs. Dearborn: But why does she use the hyphen between the names? Mrs. Wabash: To show that she Is separated from her husband. Some years ago there was a trial for murder in Ireland in which the evidence was so palpably Insufficient that the judge stopped the case and directed the jury to return a verdict of "Not guilty." A well-known lawyer, however, who wished to do something for the fee he had received for the defence, claimed the privilege of addressing the Court. "We'll hear you with pleasure, Mr. B——,-" said the judge; "but. to prevent accident, we'll first acquit the prisoner."

A pale, wan woman on her deathbed said,, in a weak vole*, to her lius'ianc?: "Henry, if I die, promise me one thing."

"Gladly, my poor darling. What is it I am to promise?" "Promise me that you will marrv Jlary Simpson." The man started. "But," he said, "I thought von hated her?"

"I do, Henry," the dying woman whispered. "I want to get even with her."