The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-11-14 00:00:00

SELECTED ANECDOTES.

BOTH ALIKE!—" Tom, a word with you."—" B.
quick, then, I'm in a hurry.'--" What aid you give
your sick horset'other day ? "—"A pint of turpentine."
John hurries home and administers the Came dose to a
favourite charger, which dies in half an hour. His
opinion of Tom's veterinary ability is somewhat stag-
gered. He meets him the next day. " Well, Tom, I
gave my horse a pint of turpentine, and it killed him."
—" So it did mine."

THE FEARLESS ONE I—in the execution of a recent
deed by a man and his wife, the wife was taken aside,
before the acknowledgment was made, by a commis-
sioner, who, inthe usual form, asked, "Do you execute
this deed freely, and without any fear or compulsion
of your husband?"—"Fear of my husband!" ex-
claimed the wife, '' I've had five husbands, and never
was afraid of any of them!"
Tett QUESTION.- A teacher in a western county in
Canada, while making Lie first visit to his "con-
stituents," got into conversation with an eminent Ver-
mont lady, who had taken up her residence in the
"backwoods," Of course the school and former
teacher came in for criticism, and the old lady, La
speaking of his predecessor asked " Wa'al,
what you think he learned the scholars!' "I couldn't
say, ma'am. Pray what did he teach ?" "Wa'al, he
told 'em this ere arth was round; what do you
think of such stuff ?" Unwilling to come under the
category of the ignoraini, the teacher evasively re-
marked : —" It does seem strange, but still there are
many learned men who teach these things. "
says she, "if the arth is round, and goes round, what
holds itvip ?" "0 these learned men say that it goer
round the sun, and the min holds it up by virtue of
attraction." The old lady lowered her specs, and by
way of climax responded: " Wa'al, if these high-laret
men sez the sun holds up the arth, I should like te
know what holds the arth up when the sun geed
down?"
THE REGRETFUL ONE.—A man broke a chair over
his wife's head a week or two ago. When he
got to gaol, and the clergyman undertook to talk
with him, he displayed a good deal of penitence.
Ile said he was very sorry that he had permitted
his anger to obtain the mastery of him, and to suffer
him to do such an actl because it was a good
chair, one of those old-fashioned Windsor ...hairs, which
was an heir-loom in his family, and he knew he never
could replace it.
AN ANTIQUATED ANIMAL—A man who wanted te
buy a horse asked a friend how to tell a horse's age.
"By his teeth," was the reply. The next day the
man went to a horse-dealer, who showed him a
splendid black horse. The horerhunter opened the
animal's mouth, gave one glance, and turned on his
heel. "I don't want him,' said he; he's thirty-two
years old." He had counted the teeth.
THE THREE RUNAWAI3. Lord Carnelford, when
once dining with Sir Francis Burdett and Horns
Tooke lamented that his education had been greatly
neglected, adding that he regretted exceedingly that
he hail run away from the Charterhouse. On this Hir
Francis, with a deep sigh, remarked that he had also
to lament having run stray from Wetitinineter. Mr.
Horne Tooke, however, consoled them both by adding
that he likewise had run away from Eton.

SHOOTING Gam a. —" Time has been," said Sir Walter
Scott to Captain Basil Hall, " when I did shoot •
great deal, but somehow I never very much liked it. I
was never quite at ease when I had knocked down my
black-cock, and going to pick him up, he cant back
his dying eye with a look of reproach. I don't affect
to be more squeamish than my neighbours—but I am
not ashamed to say, that no twactice ever reconciled
me to the cruelty of the affair. - -

ANECDOTE or 'SrR WALTER SCOTT.—In Scott's Life
there is an amusing account of his professional emolu-
ments at Jedburgh. In one ease Scott's client was
convicted for housebreaking. After the trial the pri-
soner thanked him for his exertions, and said he was
sorry he could not give him a fee, but he would give
him two bits of advice r—First, that a yelping terrier
inside of a house was a better protection than a big
dog outside; and secondly, that no lock so bothered •
housebreaker as an old rusty one; a communicatio.
which Scott thus versified—