FACETIAE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 271, 10 April 1873, Page 7

FACETIAE.

Who was the straightest man mentioned in the Bible ?— Joseph, because Pharaoh made a "ruler " of him. An English lord is shooting prairie dogs in Kansas, under the impression they they are grizzly bears. A crusty old bachelor says that Adam's wife was called Eve, because, when she appeared, man's day of happiness was drawing to a close. A gushing poet asks, in the first line of a recent effusion, " How many weary pilgrims lie ? " We give it up, but experience lias taught us a great may. " Mamma," said a precocious little boy, who, against his will, was made to rock the cradle of his baby brother, "If the Lord has any more babies to give, don't you take 'em." It iz a grate deal eazier tew be a philosopher after a man naz had hiz dinner, than it iz when he don't know where he iz agoing tew get it. A bookbindei said to his wife at their wedding, "It seems that now we are bound together, two volumes in one, with clasps." — 11 Yes," observed one of the guests ; " one side highly ornamental Turkey morocco, and the other plain calf." A lady who takes some interest in the condition of the sick and aged poor in this locality, the other day requested her servant girl to go across to Newton, and l ' see how old Mrs. is," as the poor old woman was confined to bed. The girl, recently engaged, and, of course, new to the business, went, and on her return said "Please, ma'am, old Mrs. says she doesn't exactly know, but she's sure she's between 70 anc£Bo." It must have been with infinite amusement that Henry "Ward Beecher, during a late vacation, heard one of his own published sermons delivered in an obscure village. At the close of the service he accosted the divine, and said, " That was a fair discourse ; how long did it take you to write it ? " " Oh, I tossed it off one evening when I had leisure," was the reply. " Indeed," said Mr. Beecher ; "it took me much longer than that to think out the very framework of the sermon." "Are" you Henry Ward Beecher?" " I am," was the reply. "Well, then," said the unabashed pieacner, "all that I have to say is, that I ain't ashamed to preach one of your sermons anywhere." ■ The following, by Josh Billings, is only a trifle inferior to some passages in Thomson's "Seasons," by which noble poem it was evidently inspired: — "Spring came this year as much as usual. Hail, butuous virgin ! 5000 years o'd and upward, hale and hearty old gal welcum tew New York State and parts adjacent ! Now the birds jaw, now the cattle holler, now the pigs scream, now the geese warble, now the kats sigh, and Nature is frisky, while the nobby cockroach is singing ' Yankee Doodle ' and ' Coming through the rhi ' Now may be seen the musketeer, that gray outlined critter of destiny, solitary and alohe, examining his last year's bill, and now be heard with the naked ear the coarse shanghigh bawling in the barn-yard." Two ladies in New York were talking about the sparrows and their usefulness in ridding the city of the cancer worms, which used to be such a nuisance. One said that the chirping of the sparrows early in the morning, when she wanted to sleep, was as great an evil as the worms : the other disagreed. Just then a gentleman came in, and was appealed to: "Mr. A., which do you think the worst — sparrows or worms?" He immediately answered, "I don't know; I never had sparrows." The fo'lo wing, says the San Francisco Gall, is an inscription on a tombstone erected over the grave of au editor's wife in the vicinity of that town : — " To the memory of Tabitha, wife of Moses Skinner, Esq., Gentlemanly Editor of the Trombone. Terms, 3 dols. a year in advance. A Kind Mother and Exemplary Wife. Office over Coleman's Grocery, up two flights of stairs. Knock hard, We shall Miss Thee. Mother we shall mias the©. Job Printing solicited."