FACETIAE .

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 228, 13 June 1872, Page 9

F ACET IAE .

It is murder to drown your sorrows, or to kill time. It is better to be flush in pockets than in countenance. Can anything that is baleful be a blessing ? Yes, a bale full of cotton. Young folks grow most when in love. It increases their size wonderfully.

Sinking a boat was deemed by a Yankee jury the " act of an incendiary."

Is the way to get the exact weight of a fish to weigh him in his own scales ?

The most irredeemable bonds yet known to the financial and moral world are vagabonds.

A young lady recently tried to do up her back hair with a honey-comb, to make it look "sweet."

" Loss of a China packet-ship !" exclaimed an old lady. "Ko wonder, when iron ones aren't always safe !"

A man in Louisville advertises "trunks you can throw out- of a fourth storey window without injury."

In Peru, the railways have " ladies' smoking cars."

Some one describes a philanthrophist as a man who loves all mankind and neglects his own family. t

A gentleman of the negro persuation thus philosophises and reasons with the white word :— " All men are made of clay, and, like a meerschaum pipe, are more valuable when they are highly coloured." If your neighbour's hens are troublesome and steal across the way, don't let your angry passions rise ; fix a place for 'em to lay!

Among the competitors for the darning prize lately offered at the Georgia State Fair, U.S., one lady presented a stocking so neatly mended that the judges could not find the mark of a needle about the "darned" thing.

A gentleman livingnear Austin is the patentee for the latest mode for getting rid of a scolding wife. He sets a spring-gun in his hen-roost to shoot robbers, and then sends his wife to fetch eggs. - " Galveston News "

A gentleman travelling in Georgia met an old coloured ir»an, on whose hat was encircled the crape of grief. The gentleman said, " You have lost some friend, I see." "Yes, massa." "Was it a near or distant relative?" "Well, pretty distant — 'bout twenty-four miles."

Commercial gent ("to swell who was smoking a fragrant Havana) : " Would you oblige me, sir, by changing into another carriage, or putting your cigar out jjrotem?" Swell (nonchalantly) : "Oh, certainly." (Throws his cigar out of the window.,) Commercial gent (complacently produciug and filling his meerschaum) : " Sony to trouble you, but I never can enjoy my pipe when there's a bad weed a-going."

At one of our churches, Sunday, while the organ was playing vociferously, a good lidy, whispering fo be.' regh'xwr in the pew, La I to raise her voice quite high in order to be heard. Suddenly the • organ changed from loud to soft, when the lady, not taking note of the organ, was heard to say to her friend, " We fry ours in butter." Perhaps the congregation didn't snicker ?

We remember in our childhood a tale of a little girl eating some kind of porridge with a spoon, when a pig comes and seems inclined to take more than a fair share of the porridge. On this the child remonstrates, with the request= " Take'a 'poon, pig." — "^Saturday Review." A lisping mother, who recently presented her infant at the baptismal font for christening, on being asked by the clergyman, "What name?" responded in a whisper, "Luthy, thir," when, to the horror of the whole congregation and the consternation of the mother, he christened the baby — Lucifer. The height of pugilistic sarcasm was reached one day by Jem Mace, who speaking of a rival accused of beating his wife, said, "What ! him He couldn't lick a postage stamp." A Duluth (Wisconsin paper says :—": — " V. wolf strayed into our Union Church lasb Sabbath during service, and was so overcome by an ounce of lead that was presented to him that he was unable to leave."

A man, apparently dead, was taken to the Detroit police st ition in a waggon. After all efforts to rouse him had failed and a coroner sent for, the deceased opened his eyes aud bawled out. " Rah f r Grant."

The witty man of the Middle Temple students said at a City chop house, "I won't pay for steaks as tough as these ; no law can compel me ; they're not legal tender."

" My dear boy," said a fond mother, '•never defer till to-morrow what you can do to-day." "Then, mother." replied the urchin, ''let's eat the plumpudding to night."

An American editor writes thus about a display of the Aurora Borealis :—: — \ c Last evening, as soon as Tithonus had retired for the night and was enjoying his first snoose, his Bpouse, fche rosy-fingered Aurora, daughter of the morning, snatche 1 the saffron-coloured coverlet from his bed, and, wrapping it about her, danced a jig in the nothern sky."

A schoolmaster in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who asked a small pupil of what the surface of the earth consists, and was promptly answered, " Land and water," varied the question slightly that the fact might bo impressed on the boy's mind, aud asked, " What then, do land and water make? "to which came the immediate responce, " Mud!"

A certain Tarn Fleck went about to old people's houses, in Peebles, reading the "Chronicles of Josephus," as the current news of the day : — " Weel, Tarn, what's the news the nicht?" would old Geordie Murray say, as Tarn entered with his Josephus under his. arm, and seated himself at the family fireside. "Bad news, bad news," replied Tarn. "Titus has begun to besiege Jerusalem— it's gaun to be a terrible business ; " and then he opened his budget of intelligence, to which all paid the most reverential attention. The protracted and severe famine which was endured by the besieged Jews, was a, theme which kepb several families in a state of agony for a week ; and when Tarn in his readings came to the final conflict and destruction of the city by the Roman general, there was a perfect paroxysm of horror. At such seances my brother and I were delighted listeners. All honour to the memory of Tarn Fleck. — Memoirs of Robert Chambers.