VARIETIES.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 49, 9 December 1867, Page 3

VARIETIES.

In describing a new organ, a country editor says, “ The swell died away in delicious ■suffocation, like one singing a sweet song under the bed-clothes.”

A Sweet Joke. —The following neat stroke of business deserves mention, on account of the grand simplicity of the means set in action The scene is in a druggist’s shop at Foggia, in the Neapolitan province of Capitanata; time, night, the druggist having gust lighted a handsome silver lamp, the admiration and envy of the neighbourhood. A man enters holding his hat in his hand. “Mr Druggist, will you please to give me a hatful of syrup of tamarinds?” says the stranger.—“A hatful of syrup! what do you mean ? ” cries the druggist, opening his -eyes very wide.—“ Do not mortify me’by a refusdl—it is a bet with a friend; so just fill up my hat, and tell me what is to pay.” The druggist was a merry fellow; the conceit pleased him; and so he brought a big-bellied flash full up to the neck with syrup, which was duly transferred to the customers wide-a-wake. “ There,” said the druggist. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when the wide-a-wake was on his head, in a twinkling the lamp was blown out and carried away, while the poor druggist, helpless and immoveable, stood like the image of some river god, with the clammy ooze tricking from him on every side. “Ma,” said a little girl to her mother, “dc the men want to get married as much as the women do Pshaw!" what are you talking about ? ” —“ Why, ma, the ladies who come here are always talking about getting married: the men don’t.” Extraordinary Sagacity in a Horse.— Mr Jones, who intended taking his wife out for a drive one day, asked his milkman, who had a very spirited horse, for the loan of the same; which request was granted. However, Mr Jones was not a good driver, and had great difficulty in managing the horse, which at last became ungovernable, .and, to the great horror of Mi*. Jones, bolted with them. Mr Jones did not know what to do, and a serious accident seemed unavoidable-; when, all of a sudden, Mr Jones, remembering the capacity for which the horse was used, and calling out with a Stentatorian voice,“ Milk, oh! milk, oh!” the horse stopped instantly, to their great joy, at this familiar cry, and Mr and Mrs Jones got home safely, without any further incident, save that when they returned home in the evening, on passing a pump in the neighborhood, the horse would not stir an inch until Mr Jones got down and worked the pump handle a dozen times; after which operation, it moved on directly; and to finish off the day’s pleasure it stopped at all the customers of the milkman, in'the road where Mr Jones lives, his house being at the farther end. Tom Cats.— During the progress of the war I was sitting one day in the office of Able & Co.’s wharf-boat at Cairo, Illinois. At that time a tax was collected on all goods shipped south by private parties and it was neccessary that duplicate invoices of shipments should be •farnished‘to the collector before the permits could be' issued, .The ignorance of this fact by many shippers frequently caused them much annoyance and invocies were oft-times made out with great haste in order to secure shipment by boats on the eve of departure. A sutler, with a lot of stores, had made out a hasty list of his stock, and gave it to one of the youngest clerks on the boat to copy out in due form. The boy worked away down the list, but suddenly he stopped, and electrified the whole office bp exclaiming, in a voice of undisguised amazement—“ What the dickens is that fellow going to to do with four boxes of Tom Cats?” An incredulous laugh from the o her clerks was the reply, but the boy pointed triumphantly to the list, exclaiming, “That’s what it is—T-o-ra C-a-t-s—Tom Cats, if I know how to read.” The entrance of the sutler at that moment explained the mystery. “Why, confound it?” said he, “that means four boxes Tomato Catsup?— don’t you understand abbreviations ? " The roar which followed can be imagined.

Courtixg is an irregular active transitive verb, indicative mood, present tense, third person singular number, and agree with all the girls—don’t it ?

Thebe is a man in the country who drinks so much whiskey that mosquitoes that bite him die of delirium tremens.

Now that “ hoops ’’ are going out fashion, let one thing be said in their favour—the wearers of them were never liable to arrest for “ having no visible means of support."

It is said, of an eccentric lady of penurious habits that she was so affected by a charity sermon on a certain occasion as to borrow a crown from her neighbour and put into— her pocket. * ■ • Great efforts are being made in Paris to save the Exhibition buildieg and its annexes from k the threatened destruction in November.

The steamship Tioga, from New Orleans and Havanan for Philadelphia, was burned at sea on the 27th ult., and three of her crew peushed in the flames, 'J’he survivors were taken off by the steamer Rapidan. Diamond seeking in the direction of Orange River, Cape of Good Hope, is now occupying much attention. *