Connecticut western news., 1883-08-22
THE HUMOROUS PAPERS.
WHAT WE FIND IN THEM TO SMILE
 OVER THIS WEEK.
Settling the Matter-A Sassy Policeman At the Picnic - Plantation Philosophy, Etc.. Etc.
NEVER LOST BUT THREE.

and looking down into the water with an expression of mild intelligence. Pres ently benign old gentleman with pat ent leather pumps on wandered down the pier and gazed intently at the son of Neptune.
 "Do you think it's goin to rain, cap- tain ?"
 "Wall, it may rain, and then again it may not"
 "Where do you live?"
 "In that house there by the beach"
 "Have you children? ?"
 "All want.''
 "I should think you would be afraid to live so near the water, your children might get drowned"
 "Oh, no; never lost but three that way" and he pulled up his trap with a click and rowed away, leaving the gen. tleman on the pier to philosophize on the depravity of human nature. EASY LESSONS IN THE ART OF FINANCE.
 Father" he said, as the old gentle man looked up, you are the president of silver mining company, and can tell me what an assessment is.
 "Yes, my son. We are just now send ing out an assessment of twenty per cent. It means that every one owning shares in the company must pay twenty cents on every dollar"
 "Oh, that's it? And now what's a dividend?"
 GA dividend is the, sharing of profit with the stockholders. That is, when the officers of the company so far forget themselves as to have more cash on hand than they know what to do with it is di- vlded up. There isn't much use in your remembering the word and its interpre- tation."
 "But must remember what assess ment means ?"
 'sCertainly forget that. When assessments fail the country fails. One dividend of three per cent will excuse five assessments for ten per cent. Now run out to play."- WoU Street NeaOs. SHE WILL LAND HER FISH.
 Clara Belle, writing from Long Branch to the CincinnRti Enquirer, says: "During thepast hour have been Interestingly watching an elicit girl. ] call her that because all of her efforts are directed to eliciting proposal oi marriage. She has been promenadine the hotel corridor with the object of hei elicitude. He is sappy young man, with a million, and I think likely shell fetch him. If he had an ounce of good brain in his poor head he would have seen that she is disingenuous; that her mobile face was put through series of carefully studied motions, too pretty to be termed contortions, but as insincere as the grimaces of an actress. I could see that she was hanging on his arm with that happy medium clasp between the hug of sweetheart and the coy touch of just-introduced maiden. And hel way of gazing raptly into his face when he said something was calculated to con- vince him that his idiocy was entrancing Oh, I could understand the exact nature and stage of her undertaking quite as we'll as though I had heard every word that they uttered. She was a perfect specimen of the bogus May I 2 girl all yielding and abnegative in manner. Just let him marry her, that's all ] happen to have heard her bully hel father and thrash her brother in the next room to mine."
 "sAssY" POLICEMAN.
 Gus DeSmith, while lplodding his homeward way to his boarding house al or about two o'clock in the morning, dis. covered a man, fast asleep, sitting on the doorstep of closed saloon.
 "Are you policeman ?" asked Gus punching him familiarly in the stomach with his cane.
 "Of course am," replied the slum berer, rubbing his eyes.
 "Are you on duty?"
 s'Why, of course, I am on duty" l "But you were asleep"
 ''No, wasn't asleep. I was just pre- tending to be asleep."' \ F'What TOT ]!
 | /"Nothing in particular, onlyI thinl ] it is my duty to pretend to be asleep, a, kind of hint to these society galoot' that they ought to be at home in behin stead of bumming about the streets 0 Austin at two o'clock in the morning. 7e1as SIft5asgs.
 A Massachusetts book agent, who wa wearing small circular piece of court plaster on his face, removed it whil shaving a few mornings since, and re : placed it when his toilet was complete Contrary to his usual experience. as h, went about his business during the res of the day he was everywhere receive, with smiles, which grew broader an, boarder, until at last somebody laughe, in his face. Led by this to look in tn ,, glass, he was somewhat taken aback t discover that, instead of the court plaster he had affixed to his face little roun printed label, which had fallen from tn back of new mantle clock purchase the day before, and which bore the az propriate inscription, Warranted soli brass"
 THAT SETTLED IT. A corpulent old German who ha 5 been doing thriving business in - little town in Indiana, suddenly refuse
 to pay his debts. The commercial tra, l. elers who sold him goods, have pave l ,Ll e to collect money due their firms. Tn