FACETIÆ.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 219, 11 April 1872, Page 9

FACETIÆ.

Defunct Reticence. — Dead silence. • Native Industry. — Throwing the boomerang.

Query. — Is an article that cost tenpence Xpensive ?

Tradesmen often get their living by various weighs.

You can always find a sheet of water on the bed of the ocean.

Why are old maids the most charming of all people ? Because they are matchless.

The most difficult feature to the sketcher, in pencilling Kebecca at the well, is drawing water.

Appropriate. — A popular composer is about to publish a new song, " The Fisherman's Chorus," with a cast-a-net accompaniment.

A facetious tradesman, after having repeatedly announced that he was "" selling off," has now placarded his honse with tails stating that he is " selling on." " Husband, I must have some change to-day." " Well, stay at home and mind the children ; that will be - change enough." Is it not strange that the " best man " at a wedding is not the bridegroom ? This must be the reason of so many unhappy marriages. They say that the wind blows with such force in Colorado that when a man loses his hat he has to telegraph to the next station to have it stopped. • A celebrated general, in one of his re-

ports, wrote " the best and last point in the battle," but the printers made it " the best and last pint in the bottle."

Puffing aud bl'iwingare often consider c 1 as synonymous terms. You will discover a difference, however, if, instead of puffing a man up, you should blow him up.

To be a great orator is a great distinction, btit a successful public speaker pays heavily, for how uncomfortable it must be for him when a whole assembly hangs upon his lips !

Mr. Brown (fiercely) : "I owe you a grudge, Mr. Jones— a grudge, sir ; remember that !'' Mr. Jones (coolly) : "Oh, that's nothing. T shan't be alarmed, for I never knew you to pay anything that you owed !"

" My dear friend," said a gentleman to a bankrupt the other day, " I'm sorry to hear of your misfortunes. Your family have my warmest sympathies." " Don't trouble yourself about my family. I looked out for them, you bet ! Just save your sympathies for the families of my creditors."

Two countrymen gazing around a Saratoga hotel were approached by a lady wearing a fashionable trail. Oue of the party dodged it, but the other walked straight across it, and ' finding out liis error apologised with, " I beg pardon, madam. ; I thought you had passed some time ago."

A Cincinnati paper tells of a charitable man in that city who keeps a pair of dogs chained at his door, so that poor people who stop to " get a bite " can be accommodated without taking the trouble to get into the house. Precocious. — First rural Innocent : " Where'st git the black eye, Bill V Pecond Ditto : " Why, my buoy, Ben, let fly at me yes'day. He's beginnin' airly, *c is ; 'c's only sixteen. X can't mind ever givin' my fother a licldn' — not till I was a man !"

A wicked editor says at church some people sometimes clasp tlieir hands so closely in prayer time that they are unable to get them open when the contribu- ' tion-box goes round. " My dear, will you play your thousand dollar polka ?" said an American farmer to his charming daughter, six months after her return from a fashionable boarding school. The young lady's musical performances had dwindled, piece by piece, to a solitary polka, and the fond parent's sole compensation for his many years' outlay was this precious " thousand dollar polka," and. his own sorry joke. Mrs. Partington visited Sacramento during the hot weather, and being asked in the morning how she had "rested, replied, " it was so exquisitely hot that she expired all night, and by morning was nearly exalted." " I say," said a dandy to a respectable mechanic, " I say, I've got an idea in my head." " Well," replied the other, "if you don't cherish it with great care, it will die for want of companions."

An Irish gentleman was visited . by a friend, who found him a little ruffled, and being asked the reason of it, said he had lost a new pair of black silk stockings out of his room, that had cost him eighteen shillings : but that he hoped he should get them again, for he had ordered them to be cried, and had offered a half-crown reward. The other observed that the reward was too little for such valuable stockings. " Pho ! " said the Irish gentleman, " 1 ordered the crier to say tliey lyere wor/stefl," ■