The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-02-10 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

The young ladies of Waterville, Maine, having re-
cently organised an anti-tobacco society, the young men of
that town have organised an anti-corset society.

Somebody having nothing better to do, sAdreseed to
each member of the Maine Legislature an interrogatory as
to his' religious belief," to which one of the representatives
replied, "My hope is for a better life somewhere, with less
friction than here." This was rather more definite than the
responses of two prominent members that they 'had no
religion tospesk of.
The Mobile Regiater learns that a white man is
swindling the negroes of Mississippi with the statement that
the emancipation proclamation by Lincoln had been burned
at Chicago, and that it would require • large amount of
money to get up another; and that, unless the thing was
done soon, slavery would be restored, and they would all go
back into servitude.

The La Crosse (Wisconsin) Democrat says :
" Any person wishing to trade a pair of arctic over•hoee or a
pair of buckskin mittens for a steamboat can be accommo-
dated by calling upon any of our steamboat men. Lots of
men have got more steamboats than they know what to do
with. One man, this' morning, offered to give a splendid
side-wheel, double-deck, cylinder-escapement river palace
for a second-class oyster-shop."
A Quaker, a teetotaller, gave a lecture to a confirmed
lover of fire-water, and told an anecdote of a terrible
accident, In which an inebriate, in blowing out a candle,
was killed by a flame igniting the alcoholic fumes of his
breath. The drinking individual, an Irishman, was much
terrified, and to the comfort of the Quaker, commenced a
solemn asseveration, bemoaning the fast that he was bringing
himself to ruin, and then swore that never again, so long as
he ved, would he attempt to blow out a candle.
THE EFFICACY OF OATMEAL PORRIDGE. —New York
claims him now—the one-hundred-and-thirteen-years-old
man, who voted for all the presidents, saws wood, was the
groom of Washington, body-servant of Jackson, coachman
of Jefferson, and barber to Franklin. He walks twenty-two
miles every morning before breakfast, has used rum and
tobacco for eighty-five years, and never was sink a day in his
life. His teeth are in the highest state of preservation, he
can read agate type by moonlight, and can /tear the lowest
whisper at a distance of seven miles. He was a Seotchman
of the clan of Old Lang Sync, and has all his life lived on
oatmeal porridge, and has used a certaiu patent medicine, of
which tact due use can be made by any patent medicine pro-
prietor for a consideration.
Recently a gentleman at a penny reading, who has
the usual high opinion of his powers that all those exhibiting
individuals seem to have, was evidently unaware that a cold
detracted somewhat from the delivery of poetry, and was,
In consequence, thus facetiously reported by a local paper :-
0, bud this is dice! How we love widder—add the beauoitul
sdow—the rigging the berry bells—the log icigles on the
cordices— add, as "Jacked" so fidely eggzpresses
The frozd upod the widder pade,"
all cobbide to redder this, the widder seasod, the boat
cleat-big, lovely, and beaudiful of all the seasodt.
RICH LANGUAGE. —The San Francisco News Later
Is put out of benevolence by a little fun at its expense, and
says We regard the atrocious correspondent as an
Infernal fiend, a false-tongued midnight monster, • red-
handed assassin, a thief, a he schoel-maim, a fraud, a ghost,
and an unpleasant porn- ! We ateem him a pea-green
demon of the steaming pit, with a cottonwood tail, eyes in
his sides, and a cork neck studded with hot doorknobs ! If
there is anything worse than this we think him that."