The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-03-20 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

While a concert and ball were in progress in the
opera house at Deadwood. a few evenings since, a heavy
wind carried the entire front of the building out into the
street. Suspicion points to the man who blows the trom-
bone.
A Kentucky steun•packet captain, while gilating
on the excellence of his craft, says, "She trots off like a
horse—all boiler—full pressure—it's hard work to hold her
In at the wharves and landing. I could run her up a
cataract. She draws eight inckes of water—goes at three
knots a minute, and Pimps aU the snags and sand-
..

banks."
At a police-station-house in one of the towns of the
state of Missouri they have a " Welcome " motto over the
entrance to the cells, thus ranking it pleasant and home-like
for the occupants.
A paper out West has for motto Good will to
all men who pay promptly. Devoted to news, fan, and
making money."
It took Sir Isaac Newton less than three years to
thoroughly digest the principles of gravitation, while an
Indiana farmer has spent eleven years trying to tied out
why a cow never kicks until the pail is two-thirds full.
The painter Raphael died without knowing the
rapture is is to catch the expression on the face of a wan
who chases a street car three blocks, and then, Just before
he makes the pimp for the step, pulls up suddenly and goes
back to the aide-walk, trying to look as though he hadn't
Just discovered that he hadn't a solitary, lingering red cant
about his clothes.
Speak of a man's marble brow and he will glow
with conscious pride, but allude to his wooden head and he
Is mad in a minute. Language is a slippery thing to tool
with.
A Western justice ordered a witness to "come up
and be sworn." lie was informed that the person was deaf
and dumb. "I don't care," said the julge, passionately,
"whether he is or not—here is the constitution of the
United States before rue. It guarantees to every man the
right of speech; and so long as I have the honour of a seat
on this bench, it shall not be violated or invaded. What the
Constitution guarantees to a man he should have, I reckon."
A couple of ranchmen from West Texas, after
fraternising with their town acquaintances, got into the
gutter. After floundering about for a few minutes one of
them said, "Jim, let's go to another house—tbla hotel
leaks."

A Californian paper has this paragraph :—A bill
was recently presented to the Assembly to make the break
lag of polttical pledges a felony. It failed to pass, on the-
ground that it would necessitate enlarging the State Prison
to fifteen or twenty times its present else.
A geography recitation in Nevada must be Interest-
ing. Just imagine a schoolboy gravely rattling oft the
following before a committee of the Board of Education
Buttermilk Caynon is in the Paradise Mountains, north-
west from Eden, about ten miles from Gonge-Eye, on the
road leading from Limburger to Whoop-'Em-Up, by way
of Bell Town, Lay-'Em-Out, and Hungry, and Just over the
mountains from Bung-Eye and Knock-'Em-Stiff."
" Pshaw," said a Yankee hatchet-thrower, "the
snake stories that are going about are all too thin. Why,
just look here. Last spring I went out into the woods. I
took along an umbreller, which I laid down on to some
rocks. Well, about an hour afterwards I went to get my
umbreller, as it had begun to rain a little. I took bolt of
the handle, and as I gave it a shove something began to tear,
and as the umbreller flew open, a live black snake fell to the
ground split in two from its head to its taiL The con-
founded critter had actually swallowed my umbreller, and I
never naticEd it until I shoved tip the thing and split the
cuss open from stem to stern!"
A me&hanical automaton reporter which sets the
types on irre spot while elle reporter is observing, did the
following account of a ball which however got mixed up
with an agricultural report that had not been removed from
the automaton, by aome accident. "Mks Alice B, 4
beautiful blonde heifer, cowbell and diamonds, &a, Mist
Betty C., charming brunette, pink silk and pearls, second
prize; short horn. Mrs. Sarah Eliza X., a beautiful matron,
arrayed in Durham satin, embroidered in Alderney pink,
howbell set in diamonds, real lace, and weighing 1,039 on
the scales ; first prize, 500 dols." The rest of the report was
in similar style.