Irvine Express and North Ayrshire Post. — 1886-07-23 (Irvine, Strathclyde, Scotland)

THE AMENITIES OF TRAVEL.—Affable traveller to neighbour in railway car: "Your name is very familiar to me, Mr—er—ah." Quiet stranger "My name is Moctzonctskiest Koroczoctoctber. I am a Pole." Affable traveller "Yes ; er—it isn't your name no much as your face; I was about to say your face was very familiar to me." Quiet stranger: " Yes ; I have been in Sing Sing prison fourteen years. I was discharged this morning." Affable tiaveller keeps on travelling, but quits affabling.—Brooklya Eagle. MisquomioNs.—The Boston Evening Record alleges that a member of our own Senate on Beacon Hill, in a recent speech, said "Such a trial as a parody on justice. I can only compare it to the trial scene in 'Pickwick.' where Pickwick is sued by the Widow Bedott !" This is paralleled by a Boston member of the House a few years ago, who, in anger against opponents of a measure he was advocating, burst out; "As Shakespeare said to his mother: 'Assume a virtue if you have it not.'" —Lowell Courier.  ••IVu.tx this country needs," bawled a political orator, as he placed one hand melodramatically between his coat-tails and pointed toward the constellation of Perseus with the other—" what this country needs," he continued, vaguely, as in the admiration of his attitude he lost the skein of his thought—" what this country needs—is—is—is fewer men and more of them." And then he sat down, amid a tumult that sounded more like laughter than it did like applause, and pondered I over his last remark till his head ached.  WORN trade grew slack, and bills fell due, the tradesman's face grew long and blue, his dreams were troubled through the night with sheriffs' bailiffs all in sight. At last his wife unto him said, "Rise up at once, get out of bed, and get your paper, ink, and pen, and say these works mite all men: 'My goods I wish to sell to you, and to your wives and daughters too; my prices are so very low, that all will buy before they go.'" He did as his good wife advised, and in the paper advertised. Crowds came and bought of all he had, his bills were paid, his dreams were glad; and he will tell you to this day how well did printer's ink repay. He boasteth, with a knowing wink, how he was saved by printer's ink. THE following remarkable poem recently appeared as a prize contribution in an American paper : A flimflam flopped from a flllamaloo, Where the polywogg pinked so pale. And the piplon piped • petulant "pooh!" To the garrulous gwap of the gale. "Oh. woe to the swap of the sweeping swipe That booms on the bobbling bay Snickered the enark to the snoozing snipe That larked where the lamprey lay. The glugging glinked in the gleaming glom Where buena bumbled the bee, Where the flimflam flitted, fleeced with foam, From the sozzling and surclent sea. " Oh, swither the swipe with its sweltering sweep!" She SWI we as she swayed in a swm,n And a doleful dank dump dumped over the deep, To the lay of the limped loon. SPECIMENS of pigeon English are as plentiful as ever. An editor, recording the career of smut dog, says, "We are grieved to say that the rabid animal—before it could be killed—severely bit Dr Hart and several other dogs." An advertisement announces, "For, sale, an excellent young horse— would suit any timid lady or gentlemen, with a long silver tail." A newspaper chronicling the wrecking of a vessels, says, " the only passengers were T. 13. Nathan, who owned three-foorths of the cargo and the captain's wife." The editor of a Western paper observes, "The poem we publish in this week's Western Herald was written by an esteemed friend—now for many years in his grave for his own amusement." The editor of an Eastern newspaper expresses great indignation at the manner in n hich a woman who had committed suicide WaB buried. He says, "She was buried like a dog, with her clothes on."  Bona ers.rons.—Among the "boers" or peasants of North Holland, when a young man is enamoured of a girl, he repairs to the house of her parents a week or two before Easter or Kermis time, at nine o'clock exactly, and generally on a Sunday. If on entering he is offered a chair, he may consider himself a welcome visitor, when the parents withdraw, in order that he may press his suit. If not, the damsel addresses hits in the following lines : " Zie je wanr het outer peat Dan wee je mar de deur &tat," the blunt meaning of which is that he had better make as straight for the door as the flames go up the chimney. In former times it was the custom for the bride's trousseau to contain her shroud and cap, and in some districts it was the practice for newly married couples "to provide themselves with several elm planks, from which, at the close of life, their coffins were made. These were considered as indispensable portions of the household furniture, and were known as the ` kuishold planken.' " Among the primitive folk who make these curious additions to their ante-marital gear, the door of the house in which the bride lives is painted green, and when the wedding-day arrives flowers and ever. greens are strewn in front of it as the young people, attended by their friends and relations, proceed to the Stennis. On their return, after singing lively songs, a large silver bowl, used only at birth and marriage festivities, filled with brandy and raisins, is produced and circulated among the guests, after which a substantial meal is eaten, one of the invariable dishes being gray peals mixed with raisins, and in the singing and dancing which follows, one song, "Hoe zoet uaar de rriendseluzp tvoont "—" How sweet it is where friendship dwells "—is never , omitted. In Drenthe the wedding guests are—or were—bidden by two bachelors, called " broadneugers," who carried wands gaily decorated with ribbons, and on arriving at each house repeated a number of doggerel verses, the burden of which was usually the bill of fare at the coming feast. Among other curious matrimonial regulations which at one time prevailed in Holland, no citizen was permitted to marry out of his native town, except on payment of a heavy tine, though it is perhaps needless adding, a great many inge,lious couples managed to evade this sumptuary law.—Peoples of the World.  I