The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-01-10 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM .AMERICAN PAPERS.

Josh Billings has gone into the lecturing line. His
figure, not corporal, is a very fine one—over a dollar for
"
each lecture. Ills subject Perhaps it may rain; per.
haps not."
A young American lawyer lately concluded his
argument in a case of trespass with the following sublime
burst: "If, gentlemen of the jury, the defendant's hogs are
permitted to roam at large over the fair fields of my client,
with impunity, then—yes, then, indeed, have our forefathers
fought, and bled, and died in vain."
The editor of a Yankee contemporary, speaking of a
drink he once had occasion to indulge In, says he couldn't
tell whether it was brandy or a torch-light procession that
was going down his throat.

" I say, Sambo, were you ever intoxicated?" "No,
Julius, neber ; was you ? " " Well, I was, Sambo." "Didn't
it make you feel good, Julius?' " Yah I But, golly, next
morning I thought my head was a wood-shed, and all de
niggers in Alabama was splitting wood iu ill "

Every once in a while we hear of a California woman
killing a bear. This is all right. But we challenge the world
to ransack the pages of history and show where a woman has
aver got away with a mouse.
A citizen of Hallowell has taken a fancy to the head
of a dog that how,s in the vicinity, and offers live dollars for
a sight of the head, minas the body.
She hung upon his arm so lovingly—ho was her
heaven—and beamed up in his face with all the radiance of
these pale blue eyes. Her heart would speak, and yet the
tongue refused its utterance. But love and admiration
broke the spell, and from the rapture of her soul she
breathed forth, "Your meustache is beginning to grow,
Georgie."

Synalmpha is the cutting off a vowel at the end of a
word before another at the beginning of a word; as "Ishaway
we have in th' army." Ecthllpsis is the cutting off the letter
"m" before another word; as "We won't go ho till morn-
ing." Orasis is the contraction of two syllables into one; as
" d'llght desh 'pear." Rreresis is the resolving one
syllable into two; as "F' he'sha jolly good a'of fellow."
The Pekin Gazette is nearly 500 years old, and
every now and then an old man hobbles into the office and
pays a year's subscription, with the remark that he has
been a subscriber ever since the first number was printed.
The clerk, without betraying any surprise, observes, as he
hands him a receipt, "Yea, we have several nam.a on our
list who have been subscribers from the start." Then the
old man goes out muttering something about this world
being full of untruthful people.
This is how a Yankee preacher spoke on predestina-
tion :—" Let us, for argument sake, grant that I, the Rev.
Eider Sprighly, am fore-clained to be drowned in the river
at Smith's Ferry, next Thursday morning, at thirty minutes
after ten o'clock— and suppose I know it—and suppose I am
a free, moral, voluntary, and accountable agent— do you
think lam going to be drowned? I should rather guess not.
I should stay at home; and you'll never ketch the Rev.
Elder Sprighly at Smith's Ferry nohow--nor near the river
neither."

In London last week 3,068 births and 2,188 deaths
were registered. Allowing for the increase of population,
the births exceeded by 862, and the deaths by 804, the
average numbers in the fifty-second week of the last ten
years. The marked excess of births and of deaths was in a
great measure due to delay of registration caused in the
previous week by the Christmas holidays. The annUal death-
rate from all causes rose to 315. Daring the thirteen weeks
which ended on the 27th ultimo, the death-rate averaged
24,1 per LOGO, saainst 211, 221, and 28.7 in the correspond-
ing periods 01 1876-743.