The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-09-11 00:00:00

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

Long Island farmers complain of the ravages of the
army wOll7l. -
A Louisville girl reports her first love affair thus :
" When Philander told me he loved me, I was mighty tuk
with it, and cottoned to him directly, and he sat a-grinning
like a monkey mummy."

A Boston girl just one month married, upon meet-
ing an old schoolmate in the street, put on a very matronly
look and remarked :—" Yen cannot imagine the labour and
anxiety incident to the care of a family."
Whatever doubts we had as to the truth of the
scientific assertion that "heat generates motion," are en-
tirely removed. A lighted cigar was placed on a seat in a
railway carriage by a passenger, when a small boy entered
hastily and sat upon it. Shortly after that boy lumped up
and yelled. It was quite clear then that heat does generate
motion, and pretty quickly, too.
A manufacturer in New York has succeeded in
making such an improvement in manufacturing Britannia
metal goods that it is said he is obliged to warrant them not
silver.
Mr. Wentworth is HO tall that, when he addresses
the people, instead of mounting a chair, they have todig a
hole for him to stand in.
A youth, noted for mathematical genius, announces
that the form of an escaped parrot is a polly-gone.
A jilted one pathetically sings :
""ris sweet to wait, but oh! how bitter
To wait for a girl and then not git her."
A Nevada lass having received an offer of marriage
from a young merchant who had been in the neighbourhood
but a short time, replied—" Well, I don't know. Girls are
scarce and high about here. What are you worth ? "
The following suggestive sign—displayed over a
life-sized lithograph of General Scott in a shop window of a,
town on the north shore—is a literary as an artistic curio-
sity :—" Portraits in oil at one sitting as painted by Rubens
Vandyke and others, and wbich have proved such durable
pictures. It admits of painting entirely from life."
The American Rochefoucauld, after examining a
youlg lady's teeth, said: "It requires about as long to get
a girl well out of her twentieth year as for a horse to get
beyond eight years old this spring."
Fishing in the Tennessee river is pretty good just
now. The other day a fisherman hauled up his wife, who
hal been missing for two weeks, and he saved the 200 dole.
reward he had offered for the discovery.
"I spell it kaughphy and Webster spells it coffee.
I kant tell wich is right, Web. or me."—josh Billings.
A schoolmaster attempted to flog a Racine girl, but
she ripped off half-a-dozen ribs of her hoopskirt, and slashed
him around until he couldn't spell Constantinople if he had
to be hung for it.
"I guess, stranger, you'd better have a smile."
This is curious to hear: in New York a smile means a drink.
The man "whose departure left a blank in our
house" did not die; he was a census taker, and will return
again.
A Missouri man coaxed a boy to take sulphuric acid,
and a crowd coaxed the man to,play paadulum from the limb
of a shade‘tree.
The following is a verse that, repeated as many
times as desired, constitutes a popular song in the social
gatherings of Chicago :
" There is old Sam Simons
And young Sam Simons,
Old Sam Simons' eon!
And young Sam Simons
Will be Sam Simons
When old Sam Simons is done."
"And shrill eicadce all the woodland tire," says.the
poet, speaking of the incessant singing of locusts in June.
But out in Nebraska they have a name for it. They call it
the "grass oppera."
A farmer saw an advertised recipe to prevent wells
and cisterns from freezing. He sent his money, and re-
ceived the answer, "Take in your well or cistern on cold
nights and keep it by the fire "
JOSH BILLINGS'S PHILOSOPHY.—A blush kan't he
kounterfitted. A good karakter is always gained hi inches,
but is often lost by the mile. A good deal ov beauty, and a
good deal ov sense, are seldom found together (I speak per-
eonally). It lz so natral to phind fault, that I wonder we
are ever suited with ennything. Lerning pays a better
Interest than munny duz ; besides the principal never gits
ost. Bashfulness is often like the plating on spoons ; when
It wears off ft shows the brass. I have still plating on me.