FACETIÆ.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 214, 7 March 1872, Page 7

FACETIÆ.

Medical query. — When a person declared that his brain is on fire, is it etiquette to blow it out ? A money-lender serves you in the present, he lends you in the conditional mood, keeps you in the subjective, and ruins you in the future. "What do you know of the character of this man ?" was asked of a witness at a police court. — " What do I dnow of his character ? r know it to be unbleachable, yer honour." " You say," said a judge to a witness, " that the plaintiff resorted to an ingenious use of circumstantial evidence. State just exactly what you mean by that." "Well," said the witness, "my exact meaning is that he lied."

Very sad. -A railway traveller is reported to have caught cold through sitting next a wet nurse. A boy bawling in the street in New York brought on the commiseration of a newly-arrived Britisher, who asked the cause of his trouble. The reply enlightened him as to Young America : "I want my mamma ; that's the matter. I told the darned old thing she'd lose me."

Miss Dobbs says that the first time a coat sleeve encircled her waist, she seemed to be in a pavilion built of rainbows, the window-sills of which were composed of iEolian harps.

The great joiner — the lawyer. He can box a witness, bore the court, chisel a client, floor all flats, nail the case, hammer the desk, file his bill, and shave a jvhole community

Mahogany sawdust, flavoured with -coffee, is extensively sold in London as a •" cheap breakfast powder." It :s related that a boarding-house keeper in Arkansas was once disturbed by a report that his boarders were mutinous because of the too frequent appearance of hash on the breakfast table. Accordingly Jie descended to breakfast the next morning, laid one portentous horse-mstol on each side of his plate at the head of the table, and said : " Any gentleman who .says he don't like hash lies. Mr. Brown," Jie continued, turning to the nearest {boarder, " will you take some hash I"

" Our major," said an American sol4ier, "had very long feet, and also a horse that threw everyone but the major. -One evening the major's servant was on the parade ground, with the horse, and as usual got thrown off, when one of the boys spoke up and said : ' I know why the horse won't throw the major. ' Why!' was asked by a dozen or more. ' Well, you see, the major's got such long feet ihat the horse thinks he is in shafts.' "

A Western editor' says that he will labour to put down the cause of drunkenness. As the cause of drunkenness is generally supposed to be strong liquor, he will no doubt put it down without the least trouble.

■ Cornelius O'Dowd tells a story of an Irishman, bound over to keep the peace against all her Majesty's subjects, exclaiming, " Then heaven help the first foreigner T meet ! " A servant who plumed himself upon being employed in a " ganteel family," was a^ked the definition of the term. ff Where they have two or three kinds of winds, and the gentleman swears," was jfche reply. Hibernian Landlord: "Well, Pat,ithings are so bad that I'm going to raise ihe rent." Tenant : " Shure, it's meself that's prpud to hear your honour say so, for faith I can't raise ie meself,"

A showman in the State of Maine wanted to exhibit, an Egyptian mummy, and attended at the court-house to oTitain .permission. -" What is it you want to show V enquired the judg'j. "An Egyptian mummy, more than 3000 years old," said the showman. Three thousand years .old \ " exclaimed the judge, jumping to jhis feet ; ■" and is the critter alive V A lady of my acquaintance who goes put " to do for " respectable families, says tbat her work is called " Charing " ironi.cally, becaus.e she never has time to sit down.

A Colorado saloon keeper said of a rough crowd : — " I cotild'nt get their whisky strong enough for them, so, after trying every way, I at last made a mixture f>i poison oak and butternut. That f^ijened them. I called it ' the sheepherders' .delight,' And. it was a popular drink. The first pike I tried it on yelled with delight ; the next one two drinks and .turned a double somersault in the road before the house. A peddlar came along, and after he took several .drinks of my ' sheep-herders' delight,' he went off, and stole his own pack, and hid jt in the woods." An Irish labourer, sick of the thraldom jof strong drink, introduced himself to the piagistrajbes of Southwark lately, and proposed to "go bail" before them to keep the following pledge (which he produced in writing) : —^'Take notice that Pother Hogan of Cas.lragin in the cpuntie of keri hear by taiks his Qth nevjr to dhrinke a glaa of Sperret good b.ad or indifferent 'gnly to kepe down thp vegetables, ' ?