The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-12-12
DROLL BIUNDERS.

safest way, the engineer put on full
steam, dashed up against the COW, and
literally cut it into c1lpes!"
A Scotch newspaper, reporting the
speeches at Scott centenary meeting,
made one of the orators exclaim, with
more truth than accuracy:
OH Caledonia stern and wild,
Wetnurse for poetic child!
Never, perhaps, was the word "aus-
tere" more misconstrued than in the
instance of clergyman in Lancashire
who got wholesome warning in regard
to pulpit articulation by discovering in
one house which he visited, the day after
preaching from Luke xix, 81, that the
servant had gone home with the impress
sion that his text had been, II feared
thee, because thou art an oyster mani"
A Hampshire incumbent recently re-
ported in the Pail Mall Gazette some of
the plumbers he had heard made in the
marriage service by that class of persons
who have to pick up the words as best
they can from hearing them repeated by
others. He said that in his own parish
it was quite the fashion for the man..
when giving the ring, to say to the
woman, with my body I thee wash up,
and with all my hurdle goods thee and
thou" He said the women were gen
orally better up in this part of the serv-
ice than the men. One day, however, a
bride startled him by promising, in what
she supposed to be the language of the
Prayer book, to take her husband, "to
ave and to 'old from this day fortni't
for betterer horse, for richerer power, in
siggerness health, to love cherries and
to bay" What meaning this extraordi-
nary vow conveyed to her own mind the
incumbent said it baflied him to con-
lecture.
The stories told of the plumbers made
by Oxford and Cambridge under grad
yates in the scripture examination are
almost incredible. One of these, when
asked who was the first King of Israel,
was so fortunate as to stumble upon the
name of Saul" He saw that he had !
hit the mark, and, wishing to show the
examiners how intimate his knowledge
of the scriptures was, added, confden-
TALLY, Saul, also called Paul" An
other was asked to give the parable of
the good Samaritan, He did so with
tolerable accuracy till he came to the
place where the Samaritan says to the
inn-keeper: When | come again [ will |
repay thee" Here the un1ucky exam
inee added: This he said, knowing
that he should see his face no more"
A ludicrous story is told of bailie
whose studies in natural history seem
to have been rather limited. The fol-
lowing case came before him one day
A man who kept o ferret, having to go
into the country, left the cage with the fer
ret in charge of a neighbor till he should |
return. The neighbor incautiousIy
opened the cage door, and the ferret |
escaped. The owner was very angry,
and brought claim against his neigh !
Dor for damages. The following was
the decision of the learned bailie: "Nae
doot," he said to the man who had been
left in charge, ye was wrang to open
the cage door; but" he added, turning
to the other, we was wrang too. For
why did we no clip the brute's wings?"
By the bad arrangement Of clauses in
composition f1dicrous b1unders are
sometimes made A Wisconsin paper
announced that the Board of Education !
had resolved to erect building large
enough to accommodate 500 students
three stories high" Tn an English |
paper an advertisement appeared, under
the heading of "To Let" of "a house
for family in good repair" Punch |
noted this, and coniectured that "a fam
lily in good repair" must mean one in
which none of the members were
cracked. "Ihe brooches would have
been sent before, but have been unwell,'
was a note of apology sent to Dean AL
ford by his jeweler, and "Two sisters
want washing" was an advertisement
which appeared in the Manchester
G2t0rdSNss.
An amusing style of blunder is the
bull" for which the Irish get most
credit. It was an Irish editor that ex-
claimed, when speaking of the wrongs
of his country, Her cup of misery has
been overfowing, and is not yet full"
lit was an Irish newspaper that said of
Robespierre that che left no children
behind, except brother, who was killed
at the same time" Irish also was the
Cornet who, when writing home from
India praising the much-abused climate
as really one of the best under the sun,
added: "But lot of young fellows
come out here, and they drink and they
eat, and they eat and they drink, and
they die, and then they write home to
their friends, saying it was the climate
that did It'll"
Though not SO numerous as those of
the Emerald isle, Scotland is not with
out its specimens of this kind of blum
der. Two operatives in one of the Dor
der towns were heard disputing about
new cemetery, beside the elegant rail
ing OF which they were standing. One
of them, evidently disliking the CONT
mental fashion in which it was being
laid out, said, in disgust: I'D rather
dee than be buried in sic place."
Weel, it's the vera reverse wi me-"
said the other; J" for I'll be buried nae
rs