FACETIÆ.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 137, 22 September 1870, Page 7

FACETIÆ.

Harry, hadn't I better dye this moustache?" — "Oh, no, let it alone, and it will die of itself." An Irish editor says, "As there is no news this week, social or political, we only publish a supplement." A musician informs the public in his bills that a variety of other songs may be expected " too tedious to mention." Advice, says Coleridge, is like snow — the softer it falls the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mud. The " oldest inhabitant " admits that it is sweet to have friends you can trust, but more convenient to have friends who " trust you." An Irish absentee is said to have sent this comforting message to his steward : "Tell the tenants that no threats to shoot you will terrify me." A gentleman burying his wife, a friend asked him why he expended so much on her funeral. "Ah, sir," replied he, " she would have done as much or more for me with pleasure." An lowa minister, who had formerly been a disciple of Thespis, lately astonished his congregation by the announcement that his next text might be found in Proverbs, act iv., scene 5. A witness being called upon to give evidence in a court in Connecticut respecting the loss of a shirt, gave the following : — " Mother said that Ruth said that Nell said that Poll told her that she see a man that see a boy that run through the street ■with a shirt all checked ; and our gals wont tell stories, for mother has whipped them a thousand times for telling stories." A hair merchant lately arrived at a German village, and exhibited to the inhabitants a paper which he certified to have been sent from a " Sainte Association" formed for the purpose of collecting the hair of girls and young women, and weaving it into a cope for the Pope, to be presented to him on the day of the proclamation of his infallibility. Numbers of women were thus deluded, and submitted to be shorn ; and it was not till the " merchant" had departed that they found the hair was intended, not for his Holiness, bnt for chignons and false plaits. A very pretty Oakland, Pa., girl, not over 18 years of age, brought a suit for breach of promise against a young merchant who had changed his mind and taken a richer bride. The trial came on ; and the girl's mother was present in the bar, to give moral effect to the recital of her daughter's wrongs. The council for the plaintiff, in summing up, descanted at length and with moving pathos upon the enormity of the defendant's guilt in creeping into the bosom of this family (here the old lady pinned her shawl closer) " and deceiving and disappointing this young girl." Here the venerable mother could countain hereself no longer, but with gushing tears exclaimed, " He deceived us all, gentlemen ! Me among the rest — me among the rest !" A weekly newspaper has just been started in Louisiana called the " Eagle." The following sentences are [taken from its opening article : — "Once more at the Helm, we fear no storms, no thunder, no billows. The winds may roar and surge, and in wild mad career upheave the political ocean until her discoloured depths are seen and bear mountains height with wild confusion the billows, the billows' spray. Prom cloud to the rending lightning may rage, until the heavens appear one broad sheet of tire, and the torrents pour in unbroken floods, a solid mass. The ocean may rage and her billows strive to reach the very heavens, yet, safely, proudly, fearlessly will we steer our staunch storm-tossed barque until we have anchored in the placid waters of the harbour of Constitutional Liberty/