The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-02-12 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

A San Francisco paper excuses a certain misstate-
ment by explaining that "it was a typographical error in
the manuscript."
• A boy can imagine almost anything ; can lug an
old shot gun about all day, without firing at a living thing,
and be under the impression that he's having a howling
good time. But all attempts to induce a boy to imagine
that he's killing Indians when he is sawing wood have proved
futile.

Bruce had recourse to the sword, Tell to the bow
and arrow, and Washington appealed to the God of battles;
but when a woman strikes for liberty she uses anything she
can lay her hands on.

A girl in Georgia brought a suit against a recreant
lover, claiming ten thousand dollars damages, but she com-
promised for four bales of cotton and a new parasol. Her
lawyer took the cotton for his fee, and she kept the parasol
to heabher wounded affections.

The following appeared some time ago upon the
house of a coloured man in Philadelphia :—" Peter Brown,
porter and waiter —N.B. Attends to funeraLs, dinner par-
ties, and other practical occasions."

Teacher in the high school at -: "Are pro and
con synonymous or opposite terms ? " Scholar : ' Oppo-
site." Teacher: "Give an example." Scholar: " Progress
and Congress."

The editor of an American paper thus encourages
one of its poetical contributors :—" Our waste basket for
original poetry has for the fourth time within two months
been emptied of its contents. Your elegant contributions
finds a place therein, and is now reclining gracefully in its
capacious depths."

An American paper gives the following reasons for
not publishing a poetic effusion:—" The rhythm sounds
like pumpkins rolling over a barn floor, while some lines
appear to have been measured with a yard stick, and others
with a ten-foot pole."

A few nights ago the girls in an Indiana college got
up a kicking match, for the championship, the one that
kicked the highest to be awarded the belt. One of them
tried to kick with both feet at once, and she sat down on
her spinal column so italically that she was seriously in.
jured. A college.shouldn't kick at the ceiling with both
feet at once unless there is a young man standing near to
catch her in case of a fall; and then it would be advisable
first to dress like a female trapeze performer.

A correspondent of an agricultural paper suggests
the following themes fcir discussion by a 1 armers' Club :
"Why do not cows sit down to rest the same as dogs? Why
does a dog turn round a few times before he lies down?
Why does a cow get up from the ground hind end first, and
a horse fore-end first? Why does a squirrel come down a
tree head first and a cat tail first? Why does a mule kick
with its hind feet and a sheep with its fore feet I"

Some Chicfigo people, according to the New York
am, have bought a forty-ton whale at Boston, shovelled
Trvro tons of ice into the part where Jonah went, and put it
on a couple of ice-paved platform cars for transfer to their
city.
We have received a story entitled "A Dark Deed,"
which is respectfully declined. The first chapter opens with
"it is midnight." This is all right. It is often midnight—
at least seven times a week; but the author forgot to add,
"and silence brooded over the city." This is a fatal over-
sight. Silence always broods over a city when it is mid-
night in works of fiction—but nowhere else. We can't print
a story in which silence doesn't brood at midnight.—Norris-
town Herald.

A Vermonter has had three dollars damages
awarded him for being butted over the fence by his neigh-
bour's bull. The smallness of the sum is due to the plain-
tiff's avowal that he was trying to get over the fence as
quickly as possible, so that the bull only helped him in
carrying out an intention conceived of his own free will.

" Yaas, stranger," said a Missouri steam-boat cap-
tain, "George Washington was purely great an' high, an
the father uv of his country, an' fust in peace an' war, an
other things; but he'd been nowhar in main' any boat he
ever owned with this yere scudder the .River-Queoi, on
whose quiveriu' deck you now stand.'i