VARIETIES.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4260, 26 August 1882, Page 4

VARIETIES.

Stands to Reason—• A debater who won't sit down. 1 Electricity in Franklin's time was a wonder~now we make light of. it. .Young Clergyman (at a clerical meeting)—"l merely throw out the idea." Old Clergyman—" Well, I think that is the best thing you can do with it." "la 'that your little hey ?" " No, not exactly; when he was a week old he was left on my doorstep. I am, you may say, his stepfather." A toper justifies himself in this manner •—" lam fond of long life. Joviality and good feeling promote long life. Whiskey engenders joviality and good feeling. Hence, I cultivate whisky." New meanings to old .words: —Bus: A kiss. Rebuss : Kiss her again. Omnibus : Eiss all the girls in the room. Blunderbus: Kissing your mother in-law. Syllabus: Two girls kissing each other. W I threw this off in ten minutes," softly said-the poet, placing the manuscript on the editorial table. The editor said, " when it came to speed, no long»haired poet should distance him," and he threw it off in IeBB than ten seconds—off the table into the waste basket. " Is treacle good enough for a cough ?" inquired.Jones, who had taken a slight cold/ and' was barking with considerable energy. "It ought to be," said Brown, *' it's sold for consumption." The teacher wanted to give his class the benefit of what he knew about the inevitable'circle, bat, before doing so, he asked —" What can't be squared ?" No answer for a few seconds, when a treble voice piped out—"The account that old Jim Clark owes father." " ■}

A promising youth, who had heard that the hiccoughs cfcmld be cured by administering a sudden shock of fright to the patient, tried it on bis father, who had an attack, while tipped hack in a chair. The old gentleman went over backward, and kicked up quite a racket, especially when he regained'his feet. Sonny goes to sleep on his side now, and says the old man can hiccough his old head off before he will erer try to cure him. A gentleman, having remarkably bad breath, was met by Lord Thurlow in Pall Mall, who, seeing him booted and spurred, asked where he bad been. " I have been taking the air this morning," says he, " which was disagreeable too, as I had a confounded north w|nd full in my face all the time." "Con&, come," says his lordship, "don't jjou complain, for I am sure the north wind had the worst of it." Ex-Ju<fge Weston is an unconsciouswit in his way. He speaks with great precision and evident caution—tbe result, no donbt, of long*practice on the Bench.The other evening, when the Otago Harbor Board Empowering Bill was before the House, the little man was denouncing the expenditure on Dunedin's pet ditch. \ Nearly every sentence was prefaced with —"If I ajen correctly informed," "If reliance catrbe placed on current statements," "If report.is to be believed." Suddenly, after pointing out the shallowness and narrowness of the ditch, he exclaimed, "Mr Speaker, what is the tendency of the age ? The tendency of the.age, sir, is deep draughts and large —."■ A peal of .laughter drowned the remainder of the sentence.