The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-10-12 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAYERS.
A Crestine citizen shot the stuffing out of his wife's
back-hair, which was calmly reposing on the window-sill, and
which he took for a cat. .

"--- --
A farmer in Southern Illinois, seeing the cannon at
Cairo, remarked that "Them bran missionaries had con-
verted a heap of folks."
. _

" Sir," said a Yankee to a member of congress, "you
promised to vote for my bill." " ell," said the member,
" vat 111 did " " Well, sir, you voted against it" " Veil,
vat it I did ? " " Well, sir, you lied !"" Yell, rat if I did?"
They have a curious inscription on a flag floating
from the top of the " tabernacle ' at a Massachusetts camp-
meeting, where they also quote the price of lots, somewhat
as follows :—"The earth is the Lord's, at 250 dollars a lot,
forty by silty feet."
The Kentuckians are held to be strong men. There
was one whose amazing strength was attended with fatal con-
sequences. Ile was cuttings slice of bread.and-butter, when
the knife slipped, and be cut himself in half, and two men
behind him.

A traveller in Alabama, finding his supper to con-
sist, of fried beef, fried batter cakes, and hot coffee, thinks
an appropriate epitaph upon the grave of every other man
who dies m that country would be, Killed by • frying-pan.'

"
"At the chime of a violent thunderstorm," writes a
Milwaukee reporter, "a suit of clothes were found at the foot
of an oak-tree In the suburbs, from which the recent occupant
seemed to have been percussively eliminated by a flash of
lightning."
It is refreshing to come across such a gem as the fol-
lowing : •
• •

'The first bird of spring attempted to sing,
But ere he had sounded a note,
Lie tell from the limb—a dead bird was him—
The music had fere in his throat."

A young New York dentist was introduced to
fashionable beauty, and gracefully opened the conversation
by saying, "Miss Wilson, I hope that I may consider that we
are not entirely unacquainted. I had the pleasure of pulling
out a tooth for your father a short time ago."
A man thus related his experience in a financial way
on the occasion of the failure of a local bank :—" As soon as
I heard of it my heart jumped right up into my mouth.
' Now,' thinks I, • 'sposing I've got any Lille OD that bank !
I'm gone if I hev—that'a a fact' So I put on my coat and
put ' for home just as fast as my legs would carry me; fact
is I ran all the way and when I got there I looked keerful,
and found that I hadn't any bills on that bank—nor any
other! Then I felt easier."
A traveller in Florida writes :—"Thin is the land
where towns consist of one house, where steamboats make
eight miles an hour, where railroads carry you four miles an
hour (on my honour, they are four hours going sixteen miles,
from boot to St Auguatine, where the happy maxim rules,
'never do to-day what can be put off till to-morrow,' where
the mail comes semi-occasionally, where the newspaper is
almost as rare as a snowstorm, and where telegrams are
unknown.
A Brooklyn contractor, claims to be an "artist in
marble." It is related of him that he once carved a sleeping
lion in stone and took it to the Queen's county fair for a
premium. The day for distributing the honours arrived,
and Mac was promptly on hand. Prize after prize! was
awarded, and finally " Statuary " was reached. The artist's
eyes lit up with the glow of expectation as he leaned
anxiously forward to hear his name pronounced with these
words—" First premium for a beautiful sleeping bull pup in
marble.''
BRANES BY JOSH BILLINGS.—How enny buddy
knows that the braises do the thinking, or are the interpre.
tees or thought, in more than I kan tell; and for what I
kno, this theory may be one or those remarkable discovereys
ov man which stint so. These aubjcks are too mulch for a
man ov mi learning tow rot. His critic says, "Try your
capacity, Josh, at a quarter ot an ounce weight, or begin tint
with half the quantity."
"WERE Two GALS AND A MARE."—By way of a
"hint for women voters," a story about two American young
ladies is given, called "the Sucker girls, 'whatever that may
mean. Driving in a buggy, on is plank road, they were
stopped by a turnpike man and asked for the toll. "How
much is ill" demanded one of the Misses Sacker. "Fore
man and a horse," replied the gatekeeper, "the charge is
fifty cents." Well, then," retorted the undaunted Sucker,
" git out of the way, for we're two gals sods mare. Git up,
Jenny." And away they went, leaving the taz.collectoi in
mute astonishment