FACETIAE,

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 292, 4 September 1873, Page 7

FACETIAE,

Josh" Billings says : " Tou kanfc'.find contentment laid down on the map ; it iz an imaginary ttl^e not settled yet, and those reacL-j^.agJfet who throw away their compass and go it blind." " The wind's getting round," remarked Bibbs to his friend IJuggins the other day, when it changed from east to west. " Glad of it," replied Buggins ; "it's been sharp long enough." An anxious gentleman, bargaining for a house to rent from old Mac Masters. asked if the house was cold. "Well," said the old gentleman seriously, " I can't say as to that; it stands out of doors." " Why," asked a governess of her little charge, "do we pray to God to give us our daily bread 1 -Why don't we ask for four days, or five days, or a week ?" "We want it fresh," replied the ingenious child. The misery of being called upon suddenly to make a speech was got over by a mathematician, who delivered himself in this . fashion : " Gentlemen, a morbid desire for origjinalitypreven'sraefrom saying, 'This is the proudest moment of my life,' nnd it does not occur to me to say anything else." A clergyman told Wendell Phillips that, if his business in life was to save the negroes, he ought to go South, where they were, and do it. " That is worth thinking of," replied Phillips ; " and what -is your business- in life ?" ' ' To save men from hell, " replied the minister. " Then go there and attend to your business," rejoined Phillips. This anecdote is told of Froudhou, the great French Socialist, and illustrates most forcibly the intensity and exaggeration of his radicalism. In conversation one day with Prince Napoleon, thej^rince asked him what was the form of society of which he dreamed? Proudhou said : 'i-One in which I shall be guillotined as a conservative." There is a capitaTstory told respecting Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen. The story goes that one night lately Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen and another hon., member were in conversation in the lobby* of the House, when the managing proprietor of a daily paper entered and nodded familiarly to the Parliamentary dignities. "An extraordinary man that," remarkef^pLe Colonial Secretary to his hon. friend, *^aye you heard that he has bought the London " Times ?" " You do not tell me so !" was the reply ; "he must have paid an enormous sum for it." "Oh no," said the Secretary, "only 3d!" A gentleman recently bought a plaster cast of the Venus of MUo, and, having paid for it, desired that it might be forwarded to his address.. The following day, haviag to leave home early, he said to his servant : "John, in the course of the day a statue that I have bought will be delivered here ; place it in the drawing-room." On his return in the evening he inquired whether the same had arrived. "Yes, sir," replied John; " they brought a great figure in plaster, but I would not take it in." "And why?" '• Good gracious, sir, it had two broken arms, and I knew you would have said I had broken them !" Mr. Thomas Carlyle the other day told Dr. Cuyler, of New York, who was visiting himat Chelsea, that Europe was at present sunk and swallowed up in one abominable and damnable cesspool of foetid lies, shoddies, and shams. A Green Mountain boy, whose inhuman father cheated him out of a year of his time by making him think he was a year younger than he actually was, declared on finding it out, that if he ever was born again he would keep his own age. A New York politician, in writing a letter of condolence to the widow of a " country member" who had been his friend, says, "I am grieved to het* that James has gone to heaven. We were bosom friends, but now we shall never met again." Brudder Lotter, of Montgomery, Alabama, was killed by lightning while appropriating grain from corn crib. The loyal blacks are much perplexed, and pitepusly inquire, "Is de Lord turned Ku-Kluxgin de poor darkies, jis for stealing a little con ?" Judge: "Does the court understand you to say, Mr. Jones, that you saw the editor of the ' Augur of Freedom' intoxicated? " Witness : " Nol;at all, sir ; I merely said that I had seen him frequently so flurried in his mind that he would attempt to cut out copy with, tlte sniffers " | The last new profession ladies have adopted ' across, the Atlantic is shorthand reporting. A Mrs H. A. Johnston, who is s.iid to be one of the most rapid and accurate reporters in America, has put up for the canddature of the engrossing clerkship of the Assembly, and has a very fairchanee of election. A lady hi Brooklyn is known to be so humane that she will not even allow her carpet to be beaten; and. was frightfully shocked on hearing a boy, who was relating a story about a donkey, tell his comrades he would cut his tale short. She actually fainted away when a relative said' he' had been killing time.