The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-08-09 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

A house in Bellaire, Ohio, has this legend on the
gate-post :—" Nineteen agents bave called here this morn-
ing; we always shoot the twontieth." No agent has
touched the bell-knob since the placard was posted.

It is proposed in Indiana to change the marriage
servioe so it will read: "Who dare take this woman?" And
the bridegroom shall answer, "I dare."

One test of a great mind is its instantaneous avail-
ability In an emergency. The boy who can drop a paper-bag
of eggs on the sidewalk and pass on without changing his
gait, interruptirg his whistle, or looking at what he has
dropped has a future before him, and perhaps something un-
pleasant behind him.

A great many anecdotes are related of personal
bravery. We should like to see that man who would delibe-
rately llow a woman to catch him making mouths at her
first baby.

A Kentucky magiatrate closed a dispute between
two lawyers and the Court in the following terms, "If the
Court is right—and she thinks she air—why, then, you air
wrong, and she knows you is—shut up ! "

"What do we owe woman ?" proudly asks the editor
of a Cmnecticut paper. "You probably owe her about
seventy-five cents for your last week's washing, to say the
least," replies a brother editor.

The trade in glass eyes has increased seventy-five
per centum during the past three months, and a Wisconsin
paper says that the fact is "supposed to be due to the
present rage for archery among young ladles."

A Georgia editor, in speaking of a rival, says :—" A.
piece of charcoal would make a white mark on his con-
science!"

An American tarmer. on reading that a bull painted
by Rosa Bonheur sold for five thousand dollars, remarked to
his wife that he didn't see how a coat of paint could so
greatly enhance the value of the animal; but, it Rosa didn't
charge more than ten dollars, he would get her to paint his
bull in the spring. Ills economical wife replied that she
thought he might paint it himself, and save his ten dollars.
The indications are that the bull will be painted.

An Old Maids' Association in Cleveland is, Bays the
New York Tribune, not a striking success. Though it has
enacted awful laws against the marriage of any member,
under which the offender is liable to be branded on the sole
of the right foot with the mystic letters U. D. I.—probably
standing either for 'Wye Done It or -Wye Done One—still the
celibate law is continually broken. Even the President of
the society has been impeached and publicly reproved for
marrying, and there are some wholesome signs that the asso-
ciation will collapse.

A recent Transatlantic advertisement contains the
following startling information—" If the gentleman who
keeps the shoe store with a red head will return the
umbrella of a young lady with whalebone ribs and an ivory
handle to the slate-roofed grocer's store, be will bear of
something to his advantage, as the same is the gift of a
deceased mother now no more with the name engraved upon
it."

GOLDEN LEAVES. She was searching over the
golden leaves which the frosts of October had detached
from the stiffened twigs (says an American paper). Her
auburn hair took on the glint of gold as the bright 'sun
streamed down over chimney and roof and treetop, and the
tender lines around her mouth deepened as she whispered,
"0 golden leaves, your life is typical of—" At that
moment her mother came down to the gate, sleeves rolled
up. and her big red hands biding the view of the back-yard.
"Pawing over them leaves agin, fir" ye 1" she exclatmod, as
she caught sight of the sentimental maiden. "Well, now,
you trot in here, and wash out the rest of them coloured
clothes, or I'll paw you, I will ! " " Yes, mother dear; but
these golden—" "Trot, I say! Good bar-soap is the
goldenest thing in the market, and a washboard costs more
money than all th 3 yaller leaves on the street." And the
gentle maiden trotted.