The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-07-19 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

A circular advocating a summer resort calls attention
to "numerous cozy seats in forked trees and elsewhere—
some of them just large enough for two persons."
American teacher: "Who was the first man ? "
Head scholar " Wa.hington ;he was the first in war, first
in--" Teacher: "No, no; Adam was the first man."
Head scholar; "Oh, U you're talking of foreigners, I s'pose
he was!"

The editor of an American paper recently insisted
that poets must be brief. The next day he received a com-
position entitled "The Ballad of the Merchant:" " Trust—
Bust I "
Seaside mosquitoes are now looking over the hotel
registers to see what rooms are taken.
- - - - - -

-
"Have you any objects of interest in the vicinity?"
the tourist asked the Burlington man. "I have, I have,"
eagerly replied the other, "but I can't get at it to show you.
Its a ninety days' note, and it's down in the bank now,
drawing interest like a horse race or a mustard plaster."
The traveller looked as though bis conscience smote him
about that bill.

A St. Louis man says Chicago girls have an advant-
age over all others in berry picking, as they can hang a pail
on each ear and sling the fruit in with both hands.
A few weeke since a Transatlantic editor commenced
an editorial with "The mills of the gods grinds slowly."
When the proof came down from the composing-room, the
sentence read—" The mills of the gods grind shoddy."

The editor of an Ohio paper publishes the names of
subscribers who pay up promptly under the head of
"Legion of Honour."

A New York barber has this sign in his window—
"Neith6r English, French, German, or the United States
Spoken here.'

The coloured brother in a Virginia church hit the
nail on the head when he prayed at the close of the white
brother's sermon: "Lord bress de brudder to whom we has
listened to so patiently."

An American bachelor had the blues, and applied to
a doctor tor some medicine. The doctor inquired into his
case, and wrote a prescription in Latin, which the bachelor
took to a chemist. Translated, the prescription read—
" Seventeen yards of silk with a woman in it." After the
druggist had got through laughing, he translated it to his
customer. The bachelor proposed to a lady that evening,
and was married in two weeks.

A Nevada politician was elected on the merits of a
single speech. All he said was "Fellow•couutrymen, follow
me to yonder refreshment saloon!" _

-- -
A young man in Nebraska sent an offer of marriage
to a girl whom he fancied, and in reply received this tele-
gram—" Come on with your minister. '
"There were two men got into a fight in front of the
store to-day," said a North-end man, at the supper-table,
"and I tell you it looked pretty hard for one of them. The
biggest one grabbed a cart-stake and drew it back. I thought
sure he was going to knock the other's brains out, and I
Jumped in between them." The family had listened with
wrapt attention, and as the head paused in his narrative,
the young heir, whose respect for his father's bravery was
immeasureable, proudly remarked, "He couldn't knock any
brains out of you, could he father?" The head of the
family gazed long and earnest at the heir, as if to detect evi-
dences of a dawning humourist, but as the youth continued
with great innocence *^) munch his fourth tart, he gasped
and resumed his supper.—Rockland Courier.

-
A Kentucky paper says: "A homely old widow
Over on Blacksnake Run dug up five thousand dollars in gold
the other day, and now twenty•one young men sit on her
doorstep at sundown, and compare her physiognomy to the
heicatiful face of an angel.
Au English traveller in Texas writes :—" I saw the
ceremony of baptism by immersion celebrated the other
day, and when the fourteen candidates walked down into
the water, fifteen revolvers were deposited on the hank of
the stream, that of the preacher making the fifteenth. An
elder, who noticed my look of surpriae, quietly remarked:
Yon sae, stranger, there are a great many, horse•thieves Iu
these parts, an' Christian tolka rans'n't ta took usutwares.".,