The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-04-17 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

The New York Mail mentions a new kind-4of mar-
riage announcemeat, in which only the names of the bride
and clergyman appear. As civilisation advances the groom
becomes otAless and less importance on such occasions.
At Porte Hope, Ontario, a competitive concert was
given a few days since by two rival brass bands, and now,
rather than have it repeated, the Port Ropers would prefer
having twenty-seven successive thunder-storms.. -
Religious intelligence in the Memphis (Tennessee)
Appeal: "Her matchless and perfect figure was a model,
and never showed to so much advantage as when she knelt
for baptism."
A Yankee stranger dined at an hotel where they had
, apple dumplings with sauce for dinner. He got through
with the sauce, when mine host kindly inquired, "Will you
have some dumplings, sir?"—" o thank'e,e," was the reply
" but I will thank you for a little more of the 'intment."
A man in Virginia valued his old harp at ten dollars,
but when he learned that George Washington slept in it one
night a century ago, he immediately raised the price to
4,000 dols. It is said a society is being organised to purchase
it, and save it from the ruthless hand of- civilisation.
-

Chicago and Boston are at,feet-drawn. The last
coup de pied,of Boston to Chicago is :
" Where are you going my pretty maid?"
" I'm bound for the matinee, sir," she said.
And soon was heard on the lonesome street
The ponderous tread of her mammoth feet.
A Western stump-orator, in the course of one of his
speeches, remarked, Gentlemen, if the Parsyfic Ocean wor
an inkstand, and the hull clouded canopy of heaven and the
level ground of our yearth wor a sheet of paper, I couldn't
begin to write my love of country on to it."
A Mississippi planter who owned/many slaves in the
had old days now boasts that all his " niggers " have turned
out well; not one of them has been elected to the Legis-
lature.

"For twenty long years," says a New York paper,
"The wolf stood at this poor widow's.door." To keep a wolf
standing that long is nothing less
.than cruelty to animals,
and the attention of the Society is called to the circum-
stances.
The editor of an American paper thus encourages
one of his poetical contributors :--." Our waste basket for
original poetry has for the fourth time within two months
been emptied of its contents. Your elegant contribution
finds a pace therein, and is now reclining gracefully in its
capacious depths.
A Dnbury man has succeeded after months of
thorough study and patient experimenting, in perfecting a
machine for counting the number of eggs a hen lays. This
contrivance is fastened to the hen, and when she lays an egg it
strikes a figure on a slip of paper. The instrument costs
about 1,700 dollars for each hen.
" Yaas, stranger," said a Missouri steam-boat
captaip, "George Washing,ton w's purty great an high, an
the father avid his country, an fust in peace an”war,.an'
other things; but he'dblAen nowhar in racin' any Mat he
ever owned ~With this yere seudder, the River Queen, on
whose quiverin' deck 7ou now stand."