FACETIAE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 295, 25 September 1873, Page 7

FACETIAE.

A fashionable JSTew York gentleman thinks that if ladies would onjy use their powder-pnffs more sparingly, men would get through the season with only one dresspoat. In Norfolk, United States, an old record has been published showing that in 1849 the preachers of Virginia were paid in tobacco. The editor of a country weekly persuasively remarks : "We offer especial inducements to our subscribers who club together and send in any little matter of aatables, as it were. The Boston " Globe " thinks it is unkind to ridicule those items in the papers about centenarians, It says that* it is no easy thing to become a centenarian, and it knows several who have failed — one, particularly, who has been at it ninety-seven years, and has not succeeded. i Aggravating Flippancy — Useful Sister (to Ornamental Sister, who has been bewailing the dullness of her existence far the last hour), "'Bella, you're the • most egotistical creature I ever met in my life ! " Uella (who always gets out everything with a joke.) '•Well, Jane, iff lam egotistical at all events it's only about myself ! As a freight train on the Midland Railroad was running along at. a pretty rapid' r*te, north of Hamburg. N.Y., the other day, the caboose jumped from the track and was dragged upwards of two miles over the gleepers before the accident was discovered. The only occupants of the caboose were a brakesman and a passenger — a substantial farmer who was iaking liis first railway ride The bumping of the caboose threw the latter into a paroxysm of fe>r, causing him to think his time had come. Seizing the brakesman, he cried imploringly ; " Sop it ! Let me out ! Oh, Lord ! Stop the darned thing ! I'm a rich man ! If you'll only let me out, I'll give you my farm; I'll give you 'my money ; I'll give you all I've got I I'll give you my wife ! " An honest old Pennsylvania farmer had a tree on his premises he wanted cut down, but being weak in the back, and having a dull axe, he hit upon the following plan :—Knowing the passion among his neighbors for 4soon-hunting, he made a coon's foot out of a potatoe, and proceeded to imprint numerous tracks up and down the tree. When all was ready,jjhe informed his neighbours that the tree must be filled with coons, pointing to the external evidence made with his potato foot. _ The bait took, and in a short time half a dozen fellows, with sharp axes, were chopping at the base of the tree, each taking his regular turn. The party also brought dogs and shot-guns, and were in ecstasies over the anticipated haul of fat coons. The tree finally fell, but nary coon was seen to "drap." It rained the other evening in Indanopolis, and there was an entertainment. A young gentleman, said to a young lady : " May I have the pleasure of protecting you with my umbrella i" And said she, with her lovely, . round, expressive eyes looking full into his, " Put up your darned old rag." An. oW agricultural laborer tried a Bingular method of evangelizing Ms family. Being remonstrated with by the pastor for not " bringing up " his boys as he should, he reSlied :" I dunno 'ow 'tis, sir ; I order them own io pray every night and mornin', an' when they won't go down I knock 'em down, an' yet they ain't good." The following are a couple of colored advertisements :—": — " Dis child hab lost a parisol in gwine home from a bawl todder night. "Whosomebber find the same is ticklarly quested to leab him at dis office and pay for . disadwertisement, — Dinah Cole." " Wheras parting white folks get on my heel in coming out ob church ebery Sunday, darfore dis is to caution the public to keep off my heel in peril ob delaw. — Deacon Snow." We take the following from a contemporary :— Mr. H. St. H— had a capital stud groom who came with him from England. The first foal born in the province of Wellington was born to a mare of Mr. H. St. H — 's. Some officers and friends were admiring the pretty little creature, and one of the ladies asked, the groom what his name would be. " Harribogene,'' answered the groom pat enough. " What ? I never heard it before !'" •• Didn't you, miss ? Well, it's a wonder, miss; it's what they call them Maoris as is born in the place :" Then we ! knew that the groom meant Aborigine, but Harribogene was the name of his horse %o his dying day. Another year a great pet, an Arab mare, had a filly, a plump round little beauty ; not so leggy as foals usually are* Miss St. H — asked her brother " to name the new filly Hebe ; and accordingly he told Harry the groom the next time they were talking together. "Hebe, sir? It's a filly !" "■ Yes, I know it's i fllly. Hebe, you'll remember the name, Harry?" "I ain't likely to forget that," was the reply. A year afterwards Camilla afterwards a colt foal ; and Mr. St. H — snd to Harry at the stables, "What shall we call the colt?" •• Call him, sir? Why, call him Shebe; I can't see naught else for a name. You went snd let miss there call the filly last year He-be, though it wor a filly, and you must call the coif She-be, and that'll make 'em both right, I reckon^" So Shebe was the vm& oi tt& QOlt; and ia n_aw,