Miscellaneous.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 199, 26 May 1893, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

An Irishman, speaking of a spell of sickness, said : ‘ I laid spachless for six weeks, in the long month of August, and oil my' ciy was ‘ Wather, wather !’ Mrs Nagley—Why do you suppose women were commanded to keep silent in the churches ? Mr Nagley—To give the men a chance in at least one place. Frightful Scandal,— Dreadful scandal about Dr. Puix.’ ‘ So ?’ • He claims to be a bachelor, but I heard yesterday he’d buried nineteen wives.’ £ Horrible !’ ‘ Yes, isn’t it ? Other men’s wives, I mean, of course ’ The average weight of fat steers at the age of five years in the Londou and Liverpool markets in 1706 was 310 pounds. In 1755 ft had increased to 482 pounds and in IS3O to 650 pounde, while to-day the average weight Js 1,250 pounds, four times what it was 184 years ago. In 1800 Canada exported 3,600 dozen eggs to Great Britain, while last year the export to the home market, reach eel a total of 3, 987,655 dozen. The export of cheese has increased by 22,000,0001 b , and butter shows an increase of 4,000,7361 b. Great Britain being the chief customer for the commodities, An extraordinary freak of nature, is being j exhibited at Calcutta, being two girls joined together by a joint breast bone. They' are four years old, perfectly' healthy,

feel hungry, sleepy, and angry at the same time, and share all emotions together. They also think together, the one finishing the sentence begun by the other, This is the way the people who live in the Isle of Skye are said to describe their weather— Dirty days hath September, April, June, and November; From January up to May The rain it raineth every day ; All the rest have thirty-one Without a blessed gleam of sun ; And if any of them had two-and-thirty, ’They’d be just as wet, and twice as dirty. Two young princes, the sons of the Arch • duke Charles of Austria, had a warm dispute in the presence of no less a person than the august Emperor himself. Greatly excited, one said to the other — 1 You are the greatest ass in Vienna ! ’ Highly offended at the quarrel in his presence, the Emperor interrupted them, say, with indignation, ‘ Come, come, young gentlemen, you forget that I am present/ Not long since a New Hampshire committeeman was examining an infant-school class. ‘ Can any little boy or girl give the definition of the word 1 average ? ’ he asked. For some time no one replied, but finally a little girl hesitatingly said : 6 lt is a thing a hen lays an egg on, sir.’ ‘ No, that’s not right.’ ‘ Yes, sir ; m3' book says so ; ’ and she trotted up to her questioner, and pointed to this sentence in her reading-book ; 1 A hen ia} r s an egg every day, on an average, Notwithstanding the rich pasture lands of England, and the fact that she consumes more butter than ar.y other country in the world, dairy farming there baa been de* dining. The English consumption of butter is 13 pounds per head per annum, as coinpaied wiuh eight pounds in Germany, six pounds in Holland, four pounds in France, and one pound in Italy. England paid away 50,000,000 clols. for foreign butter in 1891, and 20,000,000 dols. tor oleomargarine. A MORTIFYING MISTAKE. I studied my tables over and over, and backward and forward too ; But X couldn’t remember six times nine, and I didn’t know what to do, Till sister tol 1 me to play with my doll and not to bother m3' head “ if you call her ‘ Fifty—four 5 for a while, you’ll learn it by heart,” she said. So I took rny favourite, Mary Ann (though I thought was a dreadful shame To give such a perfectly loveij' child such a perfectly horrid name), And I called her my dear little “ Fiftyfour ” a hundred times till I knew The answer of six times nine as well as the answer of two times two.

Next day Elizabeth Wiggles worth, who always sat so proud, Said, “ Six times nine is fifty-two,” and I nearly laughed aloud ! But I wished I hadn’t when teacher said, “ Now, Dorothy, tell if you can,” For I thought of my doll—aud—sakes alive !—I answered— “ Mary Ann ! ”