The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-10-14 00:00:00

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

A Maine woman ate a gallon of oysters the other
day for 100 dollars. She cleared 15 dollars, the funeral
expenses amounting to 85 dollars.

A debating society in Michigan had for its last
question, "When a young lady refuses an offer of marriage,
can she Justly be accused of slight of hand?"

" Gra,iona me I" exclaimed a lady in a New York
witneza-box, "how should I know anything about anything
I don't know anything about ? '

A Yankee editor, in giving an account of a tornado,
heads the item, "Disgraceful Thunderstorm."

The Bosbn Globe occasionally drop 3 into poetry, and
mod recently thiuswbe in reference to the Centennial

"Breathes there a Yank so mean, so small,
- Who never says 'Wel, neow, by Gaul,
I reckon since old Adam's fall, -
There never growed on this 'ere ball
A nation so all-fired tall
As we centennial Yankees!'"
The following recipe for true eloquence is given by
a Down East orator :—" Get youraelf chock full of the
subject, knock out the bung, and let nature caper."

An American editor announces the death of a lady
of his acquaintance, and thus touchingly adds, "In her
decease the sick lost an invaluable friend. Long will she
seem to stand at their
,bedslae as she was wont, with the
balm of con'sOlation in
_oil?
, Are ther. '
and a cup of rhubarb in
you there, my love?" he whispered through a
theo '
hole in the fence of his oploved's back yard. "Yes; thud ,"
wris the reply; Jump right over." lie did so, and alighted
in the presence of her mother, a broom-stick, -and a police-
. •
The other day a New York policeman, in making
out a charge against an arrested party, wrote :—" The pri-
soner set upon use disotderly, and called me an ass, and a
precious ruffian, and an idiot—all of which I certify to be
hue."
A witness in a New York court, about to be sworn,
being told by the clerk to hold up his right hand, imme-
diately held up his left. "Hold up your riot hand," said the
clerk.—" Please, your honour," said the witness, still holding
up his left hand, "I am left-handed."
A Detroit hotel keeper writes his own bilinf•fare,
therebysaving the cost of printing. It announce "Coffy,
soup
e, ham, boyled and bakt potaty,,
fride cold pudding, and wins pie."
ou e, bcfe,
An American clergyman wrote to a lottery agent:
roste
—"I do not approve of lotteries; I regard them as no batter
than gambling schemes. My son bought ticket No. 6in your
drawing, built he drew
him—send it to me." The clergyman will probably feel
anything don't semi the money to
relieved to learn that the ticket didn't draw anything.
A Kentucky paper, in telling how a little boy got
drowned while swimming, says that after wading about
for some time, he "stepped off over his bead." Now that
was a careless thing to do. Little boys should be very careful
drowned, they may break a leg.
not to step over toeir heads, for even if they do not get

The second encounter between J. Keen and D.
Stanton, the well-known bicyclists, took place on Monday at
I,lllm-bridge Running Grounds, the diatance beina 60 miles
and the stake £,lOO. Keen was the victor. He accom-
pitched the 50 miles in 8 hours 6 minutes and 45 seconds, the
fastest time on record.
A shocking fatal accident occurred on Blonday at
Kitroyd, near Eir•yland Nether, about four miles from
13%rneley, by which mrs. Daley, wife of A miner and her niece,
MIAs Carr, were killed. They were proceeding from Jump to
Elsecar, and as it was raining at the time they had their
umbrellas up, and did not hear the train of corvos which was
being lot-down from Hoyland Ed Ikatone Both Woman
Were knocked down end eheeklegly inutitleted. '4, n.i.Yl