ODDS AND ENDS.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 102, 7 December 1878, Page 3

ODDS AND ENDS.

' Wellington Wit.—Wellington should be called the city of ready wit instead of being characterised as windy Wellington. But its ready wit, like ready-made clothing, is suggestive of shoddiness. Here is a specimen from the'Post:' Theteleport—a contrivance by which human beings can be conveyed by electric wire from one place to another—appears to have been adopted in Christchurch, as the 'Lyttelton Times has an article entitled "The Premier on the Special Wire."

Why does the First Lord of the Treasury in a hansom require no Ministers ?—Because lie's a-cabbin' it himself. J.u certain sections of Illinois, unless men sign the pledge three times per day, they are deemed base enemies of ternpenmcc. The just published report of an Irish benevolent society contains one paragraph r.'ch in caustic humour. It says — (i Notwithstanding the large amount paid for medicine and medical attendance, very few deaths, occurred during the year."

A rising man.—The balloonist. Down m the mouth.— A tongue. Th" mnn that was stuck up with pride has Urn taken clown, and hangs on his own hook at present. In case the hook should tfive way, lei him ,'w upon his i.wn liabilities u.itil he is prepared to s'eep on a clear conscience.

" How's business now ?" inquired one Nashville merchant of another.—" Dull, fearfully dull," waa the reply. " The fact is, nobody buys anything just now but provisions and whiskey—the bare necessaries of life, as it were." A Frenchman learning the English language complained of the irregularity of the verb " to go," the present tense of which some wag had written out for him as follows ;—" I go, thou startest, he departs, we mizzle, you cut sticks, thev bolt."

A boy stood with his hands in his

pockets one cold morning watching the burning of his school-house, and after the novelty of the thing ceased, he ran home saying, " I am glad the old thing is burned down, fur I didn't learn my jography lesson nohow." An old bachelor, upon reading that "two lovers will sit up half the night with only one chair in the room," said it couldn't be done unless one of them stands or sits upon the floor. And such painful ignorance pretty plainly indicates that he has never been there. The most attentive man to business we ever knew was he who wrote on his shop door, " Gone to bury my wife, return in ha'f an hour." He was no relation to the lawyer who put upon his office door, " Be back in five minutes," and returned after a pleasure trip of three weeks. Cool. —" Can you pay this small bill to-day ?" said a debt-collector, a few days since, calling on a gentleman for

settlement.—" Please look in to-mor-

row, if you can make it convenient. I have a duel to fight in about an hour, and haven't time to look over your account just now."

An Awful Look-out. —An officer and a lawyer were talking of a disastrous battle. The former was lamenting the number of brave soldiers who fell on that occasion, when the lawyer observed, " that those who live by the sword must expect to die by the sword." "By a similar rule," replied the officer, " those who live by the law must expect to die by the law." Coatless. —Parent (whose daughter had a weakness for an artist) —"I hear that you take walks with that picturemaking fellow. Have no more to say to him ! A smart fellow with no coat on his back ! " Smart grandson— 'O, come, now, grandpa, he's not much worse than you in that respect—for yesterday I heard the doctor say you had no coat to your stomach !" "Why don't yon look wh to you're going?" simultaneously saic two blind men who ran against each other the otherday. A passer-by had to interfere to keep them from a quarrel, and as they separated they muttered that "in a crowded street a man ought to keep his eyes about him."

Specimens of Western oratory are rather " overdone" ; but here is a bit, given by a trustworthy authoiity as authentic, which will bear reprinting''Whar is Europe without America ? Nowhar ! Whar is England? Nowhar ! They call England the mistress of the sea, but what makes the sea? The Mississippi Paver makes it ! All we've got to do is to turn the Mississippi into the Mammoth Cave, and the English Navy will be floundering in the mud !" The Philadelphia ''Public Ledger' says : —The report from San Francisco of the finding of a Japanese junk off the coa c t, 100 miles north of tliat port is only i.ne of many instances going to show the possibility of this continent having been peopled by Japanese drifted to our shores. The Curo Shiwo, or Black Stream of Japan, flows up past Formosa, Japan, the Kurile aud Aleutian Islands, Alaska, Oregon, California, and thence bends westward to the Sandwich Islands. A junk left in the Kuro Shiwo would, if not stranded or sunk, make the circuit from Japan to Hawaii. Of 49 junks known to have thus carried across the Pacific between 1762 and IS7G, 19 stranded, or their crews landed on the Aleutian Islands, 10 in Alaska or British America, 3 on the coast of the United States, and 2 on the Sandwich Islands. The others were picked up within the currents along the American coast, or in the westerly curtent towards Hawaii. It is not uncommon to find the crews dead, although at least 112 persons are known to hu,ve been saved by captains on the Pacific, and instances of men landing from the junks are traditionally known. These facts are of special interest, as possibly explaining the origin of the American Indian. On this su'.ject much has been written, and there is reasonably good evidence going to show that the Indian may be a descendant of shipwrecked Japanese brought over here hundreds of years ago by the samj current that swept to the coast of California the junk found by the schooner Parall.'d on the 17th inst. The language, some of the habits, religious beliefs and ceremonies, and physical characteristics uf /the Indian aud Japanese of ancieiyt times have of resemblance which make il that the Indian a:.d Japanese are related" '

It is said that a Lowland named his donkey Ma:cvveltoiwJPft the neighbours don't think that welton's braes are bonny."

There is a nruin in New JLmm* who even while asleep manages a table by his bedside—or rather, ft should should' be said, keeps hjj eye en it. N,B. —-It it l » glass eve.

Tough Swearing.—" Gentlemen of the jury," said a Tuscarora lawyer, "what kind of swearing has been done in this cape ? Here we have a physician —a man who, from his high and noble calling, should be regarded as one who wuul<l scorn to stain ■ his seul with perjun, or be guilty ef giving utterance to an uiirutli ; but what did ho testify, gentlemen? 1 put the question to him plainly, as you all heard, ' Where was this man stabbed ?" And what was his reply? Unblushingly, his features as cool as though cut from marble, he replied that the man was stabbed about an inch and a half to tlia left of the medial line, and about an inch below the diaphragm, and yet we have proved by three witnesses that he was stabbed just below the Young American Hoisting Works.