The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-12-09 00:00:00

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

An exchange asks, "Why are we what we are?"
One reason, we presume, Is because we are not what we are
not; though, of course, this may not be the answer.
Three hundred and thirty•seven American hotels
were burned in 1875, and not a hotel clerk was so much as
scorched. However, there is a difference in the operations of
time and of eternity.

Josh Billings flung this pun off after fifteen weeks'
hard labour :-,-Ornithologists tells us that the owl is a wise
bird. B. e certainly is a very solemn-'nn.
The snow bame prematurely, yesterday, and caught
most of our home poets unprepared. Only one poem came
In, and that made Icicle rhyme with possible. It was
written on a very good quality of psper.

A Cincinnati man told his tailor that he wouldn't
pay for "that last epilepsy." It was discovered that he
meant " bad fit." -
An obititary in a Yankee paper contains the touch-
ing intelligence that the deceased had accumulated a little
money and ten children.

When you see a black-eyed woman following a blue-
eyed man with a broom handle, you can make up your mind
the man will soon have black and blue eyes.•
A country newspaper was shocked to find that a
statue of silence, recently unveiled in New York City, is the
figure of a woman—a figure of speech, in other words.
A little boy from Chicago, on going to the sea-side,
saw a turtle in the back-yard of a hotel, when his astonish-
ment knew no bound& "Oh, motiter—mothor !" said the
child ;‘, "come- right away quick, for here's the queerest
thing—ii great bill& frog, with a hat on his back, creeping on
his knees "
"Let me see him! Let me see him!" The Em-
peror stopped his carriage, addressed a few words to her, then
continued his prrgress. Then the old woman flung her
hands into the air, and, with all the rapture of pious Simeon,
cried :—`• Thank Heaven ! I have seen him And now I
don't care how soon—he dies ! "

WA now have the fall of the autumn leaf; algo the
fall of the man who steps on it ("tithe wet pavement A leaf no
longer than a ten cent note will get under the heel of a mtn
worth 23,00 dole., and make him sit down so suddenly that
the moat practical eye can't tell whether his hat or his collar
button flew the highest. _ .

A wag went to a railroad station the other morn-
ing, and finding the best car full, said in a loud tone,
"Why, this car isn't going." It caused a general stampede,
and then the wag secured the best seat. Soon the train
started, and In the midst of the indignation of the pas-
sengers, the wag was asked: "Why did you say this car
wasn't goiug?" "Ii wasn't then," he replied, "but it Is
now."
He leaned over the garden fence, and remarked to a
nelathour that it was grand at this season to watch the
tender tints of nature's robes, to listen to the diapason of the
universe, and to )Laid to its thrilling influence. Be would
have said more, but just then his wife called out from the
house that it he wanted those pautaloons reseated he'd
have to come in and take them cer, and he was obliged to
stop.
Times are certainly growing awfully close, and the
most riled, pinching economy Is being introduced into our
beat families. A man on North Hill, who for years past has
fattened his pigs on the gratuitous contributions of slop his
neighbours were glad to have carried away, has been forced
to extend his circuit six blocks, and still he lost two pigs by
starvation last week. Pork creature, he says he never sausage
hard times at his souse before.