The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-03-23 00:00:00

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

Episode in a political convention at Titusville,
Pennsylvania :—The Chairman: The chair will not dispute
the point with Mr. Carter." Mr. Carter : "The chair had
better not unless he takes his coat off." The chair did not.
The San Fancisco Weekly Reporter says that "the
only difference between a cat and a comma is that one has
the claws at the ent of the paws, while the other has the pause
at the end of the clause."

In Texas, recently, a judge broke down with emo-
tion in sentencing a desperado to be banged, and the
desperado, surprised at the scene, said, as he went back to
jail, "I feel sorry for the judge."
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. - -
"The angels brought your baby sister down from
heaven in the night." The 'cute young American, after
pondering a moment, asked: "How did the angel get back
—in an elevator?' This is a boy who will some day, when
he Is President, introduce a bill to pay the nation's debt in
coppers or cowry shells.
A Yankee journal mentions James Clarke and wife
who were "born, died, and were buried on the same day./,
He and his wife must have been awfully young.
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- -
A recent wedding at Williamsport, Pa., had a gloom
cast over it by the discovery that, through some unaccount-
able mistake, the bridesmaid had been married instead of
the bride.
Here is the obituary notice of an office-holder in
Missouri : "Jonathan Smithson, county treasurer is dead.
lie was lenient with the widow, and his books always
balanced.'
A poetical New Yoi k editor, speaking of trees,
says 'Every tree is a feather in the earth's cap, a plume
in her bonnet, a tiara upon her forehead ; therefore, plant
trees."
An obituary notice of a much respected lady con-
cludes with : " In her life she was a pattern worthy to be
followed ; and her death—oh, how consoling to her friends!"
This season ladies art% going to dress their hair just
as they did three hundred years ago, says a New York
magazine. This makes some of the ladies pretty old.
An old lady in New York, who had frequently seen
references in the public prints to the Montenegro difficulties,
said, "I do wish somebody'd tell me who that mountain
negro Is who is snaking so much trouble over .there in
Europe 1"
A young lady of Indiana shot a tavern-keeper the
other day because he persisted in selling whisky to her
lover; and then, catching the lover sober, married him;
whereupon the tavern-keeper said he considered himself the
luckier man of the two.

"My friend," said a traveller to a Texan, "why is
it that everybody in this country thinks it necessary to carry
one or two revolvers?'—" Well, stranger," replied the
Texas, "you inought travel around here a good long time
and not want a weapon, but when you do want a pistol in
this country you want it bad."

- -
A Boston gentleman who had been at great expense
to adorn his garden with statuary, was much chagrined re-
cently to hear an old man from the country say to his wife,
as they gazed upon the statues, " Jes' see what a waste,
Belinda 1 Here's no less than six scarecrows in this ten-foot
patch, and any one of 'em would keep the crows from a five-
acre field.'

SAYINGS BANKS FIINDS.—As usual, the Post Office
savings bank produced a profit last year, the interest
allowed and the expenses amounting to less by
£145,849 than the interest accrued on the funds in the
hands of the Government. As usual, also, the
balance was the other way, in regard to the funds of
the trustees savings banks and friendly societies in
thelhands of the Government,. the amount of interest
allowed to these depositors being such as to exceed by
£127 617 the interest actually accru,-d on these funds;
the deficiency has to be pa/id from the public punt.