The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-09-05 00:00:00

SELECTED AI4ECDOTES.

UNDENIABLE CREDENT lALS. —A certain gentleman,
being a candidate for an appointment calling for high
moral and intellectual endowments, was asked if be
had ever passed any examination at a University Mr
before the Civil Service Commission. He replied, No,
he had not done that, but he had undergone an Ex-
Amination in Bankruptcy three or four times ! It is
scarcely necessary to add that with this strongest
of modern recommendations he was accepted on the

spot.
A SHORT-SIGHTED STAR-GAzEß.—Soine years ago.
on the day of an eclipse, when all the inhabitants of
Paris were out of doors, provided with telescopes and
pleOes of smoked glass, an Englishman was seen dnvmg
furiously in a hackney-coach along one of the principal
streets. "Where does my lord wish to go to ? " said
the driver.—" To see the eclipse," exclaimed the
Englishman, thrusting his head out of the coach
window; '• only drive up as near it as possible, for I am
short-sighted."
THE PHILOsOPHER AND THE FERRTMAN, —A philo-
sopher stepped on board a ferry-boat to cross a stream;
on the passage he inquired of the ferryman if he under-
stood arithmetic. The man looked astonished.
"Arithmetic? No, sir; I never heard of it before.'
The philosopher replied, "I am very sorry; for one
quarter of your life is gone." A few minutes after, he.
asked the ferryman, "Do you know anything of mathe •
matics?" The boatman smiled, and replied, " No."—
" Well then," said the philosopher, "another quarter
of your life is gone." A third question was asked the
ferryman : "1)0 you understand astronomy ?"
" Oh, no, no; never heard of such a thing."— "Well,
my friend, then another quarter of your life is gone."
Just at this moment the boat ran on a rock, and was
sinking, when the ferryman jumped up, pulled off his
coat, and asked the philosopher, with great earnestness
of manner, "Sir, can yon swine "—"No," said the
Philosopher. " Well, then," said the ferryman, "your
whole life is lest; for the boat's going to the bottom."
THE UNGRATEFUL ONE.— A charitable Detroit man,
in America, sent a bundle of cast-off clothing to the
burnt-out victims from the Wisconsin prairie fires he
received from one of the sufferers the following : "ii.
committy man giv me, amongst other things, wat he
called a pare of pants, and 'twould make me pant sum
to wear 'em. I found your name and where you lived
in one of the pokits. My wife laffed so when I showed
'em to her, that I thot she would have a conipshin fit.
She wants to no if there lives and brethes a man who
has legs no bigger than that. She sod if there was, he
orter be taken up fur vagrinsy for having no visible
means of support. I couldn't get 'em onsmy eldest
boy, so I used 'em for gun.cases. If you hey another
pare to spare, my wife would like to get 'em to luutg
up by the side of the fire.plase to keep the tongs in.
ROUsING l'P THE COURIER !—Thc Emperor Nicholas
of Russia was exceedingly electing in his demands
upon his military couriers, They were required to
travel twelve miles an hour, and no longer stoppage
was allowed than three minutes for changing horses.
No matter how great the distance, on they must go
until they had reached their journey's end. One day
a courier, the bearer of dispatches from the Caucasus,
dashed up to the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg,
The Emperor was immediately informed of this
arrival, as he was accustomed to receive these des-
patches from the courier with his own hands. On
entering the room where the courier was he found
him lying on the floor fast asleep. lie hail not slept
since he set out on his journey, and now, overcome by
fatigue, he seemed to have sunk into a helpless lethargy.
He was pulled about and shaken vigorously, but all to
no purpose. But this sort of thing would never do; it
was contrary to all etiquette to sleep in the presence of
the Czar under any circumstances whatsoever, and the
Czar himself solved the difficulty. Going up to the
courier, he stooped down and whispered in his ear, in
the language of the y:int-house keeper, "The horses
are ready, I,:xcallency. All right," shouted the now
awakened courier, believing he was still on the road,
"drive on awl be—" liis promotion was rapid from
that day.
A MOTHER'S WHIM. —A certain lady had a child
which she never allowed to be contradicted, for fear it
woul. I make him sick. Relatives, friends, and even
her hushand, told her she would spoil the child, bat
all was of no avail. One day she heard him scream in
the garden. At the moment she ran, and ascertained
the cause to be that the servant had refused to give
him what he wanted. "You impertinent creature,"
said the mother to the servant, "not to give the child
what lie wants." —"By my treth," said the girl, "he
may cry till morning, and he'll not get it." Enraged
beyond bounds at this reply, the lady ran for len
husband to chastise the sane), servant. The husband,
who was as weak as his wife, cried out to the servant,
"You insolent creature, do you have the impudence
to disobey your mistress?"—" It is true, sir' I did not
obey her. The child has been crying for the moon,
which he sees reflected in the fountain. I could not
give it to him, though commanded by my miatresp.
Perhaps she can do it." A general laugh ensued, in
which the lady, despite her anger, joined. It was a
good lesson for her.
A DEFINITION OF TASTE--,Jemmy Boswell called
upon me at my chambers at Lincoln s Inn, desiring to
know what would be my definition of Taste. I told
him [must decline informing him how I should define
it, because I knew he would publish what I said would
be my definition of it, and I did not choose to subject
my definition of it to public criticism. He continued.
however, his importunities in frequent calls, mid in one
complained much that I would not give him my defini-
tion of taste, as he had that morning got Henry
Dundee's (afterwards Lord Melville), Sir Archibald
Macdonald's, and John Anstruther's definition of taste.
"'Well then," I said, "Boswell, we must have an end
of this. Taste, according to my definition, Is the
j udgment which Dundee, Macdonald, Anstruther,
and you manifested when you determined to quit
Scotland and to come into the South. You may pub-
lish this if you please."—Lord Eldon" Anecdote Book,
Our TO AN Ox.—An ode written by the greatest of
American ox, and kompoeed while standing within two
feet of him, and touchtn of him now and then :—" All
hale, thou mity animal,—all hale !Yu are four thou-
sand pounds, and am purty well yerporshuned, thou
tremendous nuggit ! In all probability yu don't no yur
enny bigger than a small kaff ; fur if yu did yud break
down tenses, and switch yure tale, and rush around,
and beller, and run over fokes, thou awful heed ! Oh,
what a lot of mince pize yud maik, and sasaingers !
and yur tale, which kan't wa fur from phony pounds,
wud maik nigh untu a barril of ox-tale soop ; and cudn't
a heap of stakes be cut oph yu, which, with solt and
pepar, wudn't be bad to talk. Thou great and glorious
mseekt I "
STRONG Sone.—An old Dublin beggar-woman asked
a lady for a halfpenny. "I've nothing for you," said
the lady; "but if you go to the soup kitchen you'll
get a pint of excellent soup."—" Soup is it ye mane?"
bawled the indignant mendicant. "Do you call that
stuff soup? Sure and I'll just tell ye how they make
it; they get a quart of water, and then boil it down to a
pint to make it strong."
ONE OF JOSH BILLINGS's l—TheWollOwing by Josh
Billings is only a trifle inferior to some passages in
Thomson's Seasons, by which noble poem it was evi-
dently inspired :—" Spring came this year no much as
usual. Hail, butuos virgin ! 5,000 years old and up-
ward, hale and hearty old gal, welcum tew New York

State and parts adjacent Now the birds jaw, now
the cattle holler, now the pigs scream, now the geese
warble, now the Late sigh, and Nature is frisky, while
the nobby cockroach is sin,ging, Yankee Doodle' and
Coming through the rhi.' Now may he seen the mus-
keteer, that gray outlined critter of distiny, solitary
and alone, examining his last year's bill, and now be
heard with the naked ear the coarse shanghigh bawling
in the barn-yard."
A NOVEL-READER.—An American author says,
"What think you of my being waked up one morning
by a note from a young lady-friend, containing her
compliments, and a request that I would lend her
Scott s novels,' as she 'felt like reading something,'
and had 'heard that they were very good ?" My
gallantry is unquestionable; so I replied by sending
her round the Boston edition of twenty-seven volutuee
on a wheel-barrow at once. This was exactly at eight
in the morning. They were returned 'in good order and
well-conditioned at five in the afternoon of the same
day. I have rubbed up my arithmetic, and found that,
making allowance for the ' out ' and ' home ' tripe, the
rate of perusal was one volume every nineteen minutes;
a pace hardly equalled as yet in the annals of litera-
ture. It entirely shades the composition of the self-
same works. I look now with envy and wonder at that
young woman. How she would astonish the head-
librarian of the Bodleian, if she should take up a fancy
to patronise that book-stall."
A KNOWING DOG.—A shepherd once, to prove the
quickness of his dog, which was lying before the fire in
the house, said, in a sentence concerning something
else, "I'm thinking, sir, the cow is in the potatoes."
Though he purposely laid stress on these words,
said then, in a quiet, unconcerned tone of yob*, the
dog, who appeared to be asleep, immediately jumped
up, and scrambled up to the turf roof of the house,
from which he could see the potato field. He then
not seeing the cow there, ran and looked into the barn
where she was, and finding that all was right, came
back to the house. After a short time the shepherd
said the same words again, and the dog repeated his
look-oat; but on the false alarm being a third time
given, the dog got up, and wagging his tail, looked his
master in the face with so comical an expression of
interrogation, that he could not help laughing aloud at
him. With a slight growl he laid himself down in his
warm corner, with an offended air, as if determined
not to be made a fool of again.
GEORGE IV.'S LEVEE AT EDINBURGH. —A laird of old
family and no mean estate, previously to the day of
the reception, had sent in his name for presentation.
He arrived, to his own great discomfiture, late on the
scene .4 action, and as he was passing through the
antechamber, and saw many whom he knew coming
out, he asked them to tell him whether his being late
was of any material consequence, what he had got to do,
RA he had never been at Court before. "Oh,"
said one, who had passed through the ordeal, "there
I is no difficulty about the matter, it is very plain sailing.
Von have I,nly got just to go in, make your I,OW--
lower, by the bye, than you would to any ,me else—
and pass on and pass out " The old sentleman, cord
stitutionally shy, and rendered doubly so lath. present
instance' by the fear of having incurred the royal d.
pleasure by the tardiness of his arrival, like Sir Pert
Macsycophant, kept "aye booing, booing ," and with
ghastly smirk sidling and edging his way tow ards the
; door of exit, when Lord Erroll, observing 1119 embarrass-
, ment, and pitying it, kindly shouted to him under his
voice, "Kiss hands ! kiss 'hands " On which, to the
'L delectation of the king, and the dismay of all around
, hint, the poor startled man faced about, and then re-
,treating backwards, kissed both his hands to the king,
, as if wafting a cordial recognition from a distance to
an old and intimate friend—Memoir of chark, Mayne
-

A TEACHER or LANGUAGES. —The following
translation was made by a German who professed to
teach languages, and who thought he was telling the
story in really beautiful English :--A lady which wilt
to dine chid to her servant that she had not used butter
enough. Thiß girl, for to excth3e himselve, was biting
a little cat on the hand, and told that ahe came to take
him in the crime finishing to eat the two pounds from
butter who remain. The lady took immediately the
cat whom was put in the balances, it just weighed that
two pound. This is all the very much well for the
butter,- the lady then abs ezdd, bat whcre to the
cat !"