The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-02-05 00:00:00

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

It is one quarter safer to fall into the Atlantic Ocean
than into the Pacific • for the latter is four miles deep, while
he Atlantic is only three.
"He was milking the river and fell in" is the
Rochester Democrat's epitaph on the milkman who was
drowned in that city the other day.
A. New York tailor advertises "garments cut only
to fit, and in the best style, but regulating any disproportions
that may exist, and enhancing the correct contour of the
proportionate." _ _

- -
An anti-onien eating society has been organized by
the good people of Lafayette, U.S. We have heard of things
that were called into being by a word : here is an association
created by a breath.
A young man in New York read somewhere that
more deaths occurred at five o'clock in the morning than at
any other hour, and now gets up regularly at four, in order
to be out when Death makes his morning calls.

A Virginian accidentally stumbled- and fell. A lady,
thinking to commiserate with the mishap', Obs'erved'-that
she regretted his unlucky faux pas. "I didn't hurt my
fore-paws," he replied; "it was my knee."
A Chicago paper tells the story of a nocturnal
serenader who sang, "When the mo hoon's shi-hi-hi ning
o'er the la-hake, 0, the-hen I'll tht-hink of thee he-he-hee I
0, the-hen thi-ni•hi-hi-hink of thee-ee-ee ! " The music
aroUsed a dog about the size of a flour-barrel, and the
musician is doing as well as could be expected.
While a Selinsgrove minister was in the midst of his
disceurse a 3 dung • man opened the 'church door, and stood
there casting furtive glances over the congregation. The
clergyman paused, gave the youth .a withering glance, and
• remarked, "Go out, young man she's not here." He went
out. Such thoughtfulness on the part of the' clergyman
would save young men much trouble and anxiety in more
places than Selinsgrove.
• The chairman of a Far West vigilance committee
who was instructed to duck an obnoxious citizen, thus re-
ported to his constituents: "We took the thief down to the
river, made a hole in the ice, and proceeded to duck him,
hut he slipped out of our hands and hid under the ice. All
our efforts to entice him to come out failed, and he has now
had his start some hours."

One of the most touching instances of gratitude is
alleged to have occurred at Milwaukie. A little boy, the
child of a wealthy mother, tumbled into the river. lie was
iescued by a working man and restored to his parent. The
lady gave the man a three-cent postage stamp, and said she
would be glad to have him come up to her house and sit
out in the entry and hear her play the piano. Ile went
away with tears. lie said he wasn't usedlo such overwhelm-
ing kindness.

A New York journal tells a remarkable story of a
man down at Tenant's Harbour, who, being out in his boat,
fell overboard, and not behag able to swim, conceived the
idea of striking the bottom, and walking on ashore. Ac-
cordingly, shutting his eyes aria' his teeth firmly together, he
struck out for a.walk to the shore, until, thinking he must
, be near land, he opened his eyes, and found himself in the
middle.of a coth field.
At a time of haying fhe foundation stone of a certain
, church in New York, a well-known citizen, who had just
buried his mother-in-law, insisted on putting the under-
taker's bill into the foundation sto.ie, with the other relics.
When remonstrated with, he replied, "Well, I rather
think, when the foundation stone is opened in the course of
a couplo Of hundred years, folks will consider this bill a
-great curiosity, and will open their eyes to see what a lot it
costs for a funeral now-a-days."
A gentleman in one of the Western States became
the proprietor of an Inflammable gas spring. Wishing to
make an experiment, he inverted a hogshead over it, and
when the gas had accumulated sufficiently, seated hirnsell
upon it, and boring a gimlet-hole through the top, philo-
sophically applied a lighted candle to the hole. The next
that was seen of him, he was kicking a pair of red-top boots
out of an adjoining canal, into which he had descended head
first. He was rescued, and carried to his home, a sadder,
wiser, and muddier man.

lumigut