Bridlington and Quay Gazette. — 1887-10-15 (Bridlington, Humberside, England)

WIT AND HUMOUR.  He Ott dinner): "May I assist you to cheese Miss Girton P" ?dies Girton (just graduated) : "Thanks, no I lam very comfortable where lam I But you may &said the cheese to me, if you will!" "Yon are a regular muff, sir," said one traveller to another, in s great paegion, while disputing in a London coffee-house. "Thank you," replied Mr. OR. very coolly "if; rm a muff, Ice done my duty. I've made you warm."  ,1 Magistrate : Yon attacked thin gentleman : I you knocked him down and robbed him of bin watch." Prisoner: " Your honour is right ; but if I bad not taken the initiative, who can tell but that he might have done the same to me I"  A bashful young man could defer the momentous question no longer, so he etammered : " Martha—l I—do yon—you must hare—are you I aware the good book says—or—that it is not —g— good that a m—man ahead be alone? " Then hadn't you better run hotpot° your mother ?'' coolly euggested Martha.  In Samuel Longfellow's memories of his brother there is an entry from the poet's diary in which he tells how •• society woman", at whose table he was dining one day, asked him : "Oh, Mr. Longfellow, have you ever published a book ?" This was after two•thirde of lain lifework was done. Literary eminence does not effect much lodgement in the minin of people of a certain grade. There was an old minister once who told some boys of the Bible leseon he was to read in the morning. The boys finding the place, glued together her the eounecting pages. The next morning the preacher read on the bottom of the page: "Whoa Noah was one hundred and twenty year. old he took into himself a wife, who was (then turning the page) one hundred and forty cubitn long, forty cubit, wide, built of gopher wood, and covered with pitch inside and out." He was naturally 'masted at this. He read it again, verified it, and then said : My friends, this is the first time that I ever read this in the Bible, but I accept it as evidence of the assertion that we are fearf oily and wonderfully made." What man done not feel sure, not only that he can marry if he chooses and when he chooses, but that he can have the sort of wife he wants P He thinks at any period of his life, if he likes to " sow his wild oats," and tired of It all, dreams of domestic blies at his own fireside, instead of club dinners and gallant general attentions to his lady.friends, he can marry any woman he chooses, and wattle down. All bachelors are sure of this. Yet, after all, Jack he no surer of his luck in the snatrimonal lottery than Jill. Now and thee an old bachelor, having spout his life in looking for perfection and his belle" ideal, is obliged to take the woman he Oats get and be thank• ful for her. We offer no opinion; but the facts of the case are open to everyone, and we ask our readers how often they have heard of the anion of • bachelor-friend (who had always been so particular as to the sort of wife he would some day possess himself of) without either feeling inclined to shriek with laughter or to groan with horror  There are very few people who have not cause to lament in some friend or relation what Mary Mehl so well called " the wickedness of neglecting one's self." " Pray tell me," she wrote to Miss Bonham Carter, "hose your sprain is. lam afraid you have neglected it, and that hsa made it no difficult to cure. Oh, the wickeduessof neglecting one's self Snrcide is nothing to it ; one is buried and done with, people are very sorry, and get consoled ; but sick folk are the plague of one's life. They absorb more capital than a war. Their relations are generally annihilated ; and then the money I the doctors the rubbers ! the water-packers, the travels, the lodgings at watering•plsces, the bottle., the gallipots, the plaisters, the blisters, the powders, the pill-boxes, the night lamps, the saucepans, the messes, groats, semolina., tapiocas! I could commit suicide myself to get out of their way; wicked, cruel, extravagant, selfish, absorbing wretches Adieu, dear eon; take care of yourself ; don't take care of other folk. Care killed a cat ; I dare say it was 'cause the cat took two of her kittens instead of ;reel."  It is related of Tamer that he hsd once painted • sea-piece which hung next to Constable's " Waterloo Bridge." Turner's was a grey picture, Constable's glowed witd colour. Turner, at work on anothor picture which he was touching up on " varnishing day," crossed the room with his palette in his hand, and laid • round spot of red lead in the centre of the grey aea, about the size of a ahilling. I " Turner has been here," he said to Leslie, who came in at the moment, "and hae Prod a gun" Before the day was over, Turner had glazed the red patch and shaped it into a buoy. It is only fair to the great landecape-painter to give another anecdote of "varnishing day," leaving quite a different impression on the memory. This year—it was 1826 Turner's picture was not grey, but brilliant, and it was hung between two of the Proaident'e portraits, to which it did very decided injury. Turner deliberately reduced the glow of his own picture by covering it with a wash of lamp-black. " Poor Lawrence was so unhappy," be mad, "and it will all wash off after the exhibition."