The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-03-16 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

A reflective New Orleans reporter described a new
hearse as 'a splendid though sad vehicle."
"The American Case." A coffin to put it in and
bury it for ever.
A new style of glove for New York is made of
opposum skin; it livery soft and durable, and can be worn
In full dress.
A fashion article in a Wisconsin paper describes
the suit of an Indian boy five yews old. "It consists of an
garter tied around the left leg.
In Pere La Chaise cemetery there is a monument
In the form of a "tear," erected by a husband to his wife,
with the inscription Judge by that how I loved her."
To be thin is the last fashionable feminine ambition
In New York. Scrawny necks are all the rage, and young
ladies whom nature has not thus blessed paint their rounded
shoulders with wrinkles.
Fisk's first revenge on Stokes was in telling "Mine"
Mansfield that on a certain day Erimstock would go up. She
told Stokes, who forthwith loot 100,000 dollars by its going
down!
The French vineyards are still in dread of the de-
'tractive vine-Bea, phylloxera vaetatrix, which followed the
oidium plague. As yet the prize of £4OO for exterminating
the insect Ms not been earned.
A pretty, rich young widow was regarding her.
WI
lately at a mirror in her chamber, while- for the first
time trying en her widow's esp. "Behold," she exclaimed,
" the real cap of liberty
An American editor says he once partook of a
beverage so very strong that he could not tell whether it was
brandy or • torchlight procession that was going down his
throat.
A chiropodist in Paris commences his puff with these
words—" all the world has corns the fairest, boldest, best
Homan, doubtless had corns ; Joliet had probebly ; and you,
ladies and gentlemen, need not blush to expose your feet to
the operator," itc.
In Mexico the custom is, when a duel has been
fought, to erect a cross on the spot, and every one that
alses by throws • stone at the cross. Some ingenious
skess have taken advantage of the custom to clear stony
land by eroding comma where ao duel has been tought

What a stick is to sweet peas so is the masculine
gender to sweet female woman. This we cull from a con-
tempoi ary who heads it "A Truly Poetical Thought." Slay he,
but if our contemporary were practical, he would see in it
only anemblem of how woman manages to "get round" and
tire vent man.
The following composition has been turned out by
an American scholar, aged fifteen —"A: boy without a
father is a horphati—without a mother, a double horphan ;
but is offenest without a grandfather aud grandmother, and
then he is a horpbauist."
_ • ^ •• • --- -

At a social party, where humorous definitions was
one of the games lu the evening, the question was put,
" What is religion ?" " Religion," replied one of the party,
more faMOILB as a man of business than a wit, " is an in-
surance against tire in the next world, for which honesty is
the best policy."
A young lady at Council Bluffs being informed by
her "fetter "that he intended to cease Ills attentions, cow-
hided him round the room, and, as he sprang through the
open window, told him, with a parting lick, that that would
teach him to be more careful for the future not to trate with
• gentle and loving heart.
WORSE STILL !—The people of a village in Kansas,
called Grasshopper Falls not thinking the name sufficiently
high sounding, had it changed to Sauterelle. The dwellers
thereabout, unaccustomed to such outlandish appellations,
corrupted the new name into "Sow Tail," and the village is
now known only by that title. The humiliated villagers have
Just appealed to the Legislature to change the name of their
village back to Grasahopper
STARTING A iIENNERY. —A story is told about a
Yankee who lately settled down in the West. He went tea
neighbour and thus accosted him :—" mat, I reckon you
habit got no old hen or nothing you'd lend me for a few
weeks, have you neighbour? " " I will lend you one with
pleasure," replied the gentleman, picking out the very finest
one in the coop. The Yankee took the hen home, and then went
to a neighbour, sad borrowed a dozen eggs. He then Net the
hen, and in due course of time she hatched a dozen chickens.
The Yankee was again puzzled; he could return the hen,
but how was he to return the eggs? Another idea, He would
keep the hen until she had laid a dozen eggs. This he did,
and then returned the hen and eggs to their respective owners,
remarking, as he did so, Wel, I reckon I've got as fine a
dozen chickens as you ever had your eyes on, and they didn't
cost me scent nuther."