The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-07-17 00:00:00

CUTTINGS 'FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.
"I will postal-card you" is the latest threatening
expression in Boston.

A moral debating society "out West" is engaged
in a discussion on the following question :—" If a husband
desert his wife, which is the most abandoned, the man or
woman?"

Pr, sident Grant is credited with a joke. To a
friend who asked his opinion of General Sherman's Memoirs,
after getting further into the book he is reported to have
said :—" Well, I am beginning to find out that I didn't have
much to do with that last war."

The average American boy will make a great fuss
' and complain bitterly that it will spoil his clothes, it asked
to bring in an armful of wood for his mother, but give him a
'gun, and he will crawl half a mile on his stomach, through
a ditch with four inches of water in it, to get a shot at some
ducks.

It is comparatively safe again to make calculations
•on the immediate future. The Chicago world-burning man
has discovered that he made a mistake in his calculations,
and that things will not come to an end for two years.
An American barrister being challenged the other
day replied " The laws governing the code of honour allow
the challenged party to designate time and place and weapons
for a duel. I appoint that we fight in an open-top hog-pen,
immediately after a hard summer rain, and that the weapons
be dung-forks. Whoever shall toss the other out shall be
regarded as having killed him in mortal combat."

A complimentary watchmaker and sheriff says :
" You can stop a clock at any moment, but you cannot stop
a watch. The same remark applies to the stopping the talk
of a man and of a woman He is a great, coarse, ugly
machine, but you can silence him. She is a beautiful,
fragile, jewelled thing —but she will run on until she stops of
herself."

American lovers say the prettiest things; here is
the sublimeisimus of a remark ;—"Amelia, for thee—yes, at
thy command—l'd tear this eternal firmament into a thou-
sand fragments; I'd gather the stars one by one as they
tumble from the regions of ethereal space, and put them in
my trousers pocket; I'd pluck the sun, that Oriental god of
day, that traverses the blue arch of heaven in such majestic
splendour—l'd tear him from the sky, and quench his bright
effulgence in the fountain of my eternal love for thee I"

Josh Billings has become sentimental on the honey
bee. He sent the following to the last spelling bee in his
locality :—The hunny bee iz about 10 times the size of the
hous flly—l never meazured them—they won't stand still
long enuff, but I think i have got their dimenshims about
right. If i have made blunder in this matter, iam ready to
repent and be forgiven for it. Runny bees are built with a
sting, which is quicker than a ghost when a good bizziness
chance offers; but i never knu one to use it just for the
devilry of the thing. Runny bees have a queen, but never a
king; this iz a grate kompliment to the sex, and iz an argu-
ment for "Wimmin's Rights." I hey the hunny bees bekau g
they are allwuss bizzy, and have a stirger allivuss hot and
reddy for the lazy.

[From ku,n,ch. ]
STEAM v. SUNSHINE.
(A Melibcean Moan elicited by Mr. Gnia's plan for Hay-
making by Artificial Heat —See "Times" of June 7th.)
ANOTHER old proverb mast go to the wall!
"Make hay while the sun shines !"—Pooh I pooh I Not at all
Since we're able, they say, in this new-tangled way,
To make it by night just as well as by day;
That 31oloch, Machinery, 's destined to master all,
Playing the deuce with the pretty and pastoraL
Could VIRGIL return, it might move him to weeping
To watch our mechanical mowing and reaping;
And now, just to clench practicality's yoke,
They're cashiering poor Phcebus in favour of coke.
For haymaking's done, on this precious new plan,
By the aid of an engine, a stove, and a fan 1
Alas for Arcadia! The Steam-engine frolics
Where thy swains sang and piped, till our modern bucolics
Are bare of romance—and starved fancy but fibs
When it owns inspiration in MECHI or GIBBS !
The poor picturesque! it is pretty well spent
In its fight with that pitiless tyrant, "Per cent."
Though RusEix may rave, and the Muses bemoan,
The steam-sinewed despot will soon reign alone.
0, Jupiter-Pluvius, Clerk of the Weather,
One cannot aequit you of blame altogether;
Did you do your devoir, and Sol stick to his work,
There yet were a chance for the Ilaymaker's Fork!