THE LAW OF COMPENSATION.-317. JOE being rather remiss in h Sunday-school lesson, the teacher remarked that he hadn't a very good memory. "No, ma'am," said he, hesitating, "but I have got a firstrate forgettery!" COULDN'T MAKE AN IMPRESSION.-318. 66 A LITTLE boy, of four years, who had been lectured by his aunt on the evil of disobedience to parents, was shown the example of a boy who disobeyed his mother, and went to the river and got drowned. Did he die?" said Bobby, who had given the story due attention. "Yes," was the serious reply. "What did they do with him?" asked Bobby, after a moment's reflection. "Carried him home," replied his aunt, with due solemnity. After turning the matter over in his mind, as it was hoped profitably, he looked up and closed the conversation by asking, “Why didn't they chuck him in again." THE MINISTER'S RECEPTION.-319. A CERTAIN lady one day had been much annoyed by the ringing of her door-bell by the mischievous boys in the vicinity, and determined to be made no more a fool of by going to the door. In the course of the forenoon, however, her minister called to see her, dressed in his nicest manner. He ascended the steps, and gently drew the bell-handle, when the lady shouted from the entry "I see you, my boy! if I catch you I'll wring your neck!" The affrighted gentleman rushed down the steps through a crowd of young scamps, and was not seen at the lady's house again. PRINTERS' MISTAKES.-320. DURING the Mexican war, one newspaper hurriedly announced an important item of news from Mexico, that General Pillow and thirty-s -seven of his men had been lost in a bottle. Some other paper informed the public not long ago "that a man in a brown surtout was yesterday brought before the police court, on a charge of having stolen a small ox from a lady's workbag. The stolen property was found in his waistcoat pocket." "A rat," says another paper, descending the river, came in contact with a steamboat, and so serious was the injury done to the boat that great exertions were necessary to save it." An English paper once stated that the Russian General Raekinoffkowsky "was found dead with a long word in his mouth." It was, perhaps, the same paper that, in giving a description of a battle between the Poles and the Russians, said that "the conflict was dreadful, and the enemy was repulsed with great laughter." Again: "A gentleman was yesterday brought up to answer the charge of having eaten a stage driver for demanding more than his fare. At the late Fourth of July dinner, in the town of Charlestown, none of the poultry were eatable except the owls. PLAIN ENOUGH.-321. A WESTERN editor, in reply to a contemporary, says to him, "The fact is as evident as the nose on your face, or the whisky blossoms on the countenance of your Mayor." ONE OF THE PRESS. -322. A VERY fat man having taken his seat in an omnibus already crowded, to the great annoyance of the passengers, several, with partial breathing and muttering lips, inquired who such a lump of flesh as the new comer could be. “I don't know," said a wag, "but, judging from the effect he produces, I should suppose him a member of the Press." ANOTHER BURST OF ELOQUENCE.-323. IN a stump speech somewhere out West-the usual locality-a windy orator recently got up before an assem blage of his intelligent countrymen, and said: "Sir, after much reflection, consideration, and examination, I have calmly, deliberately, and carefully come to the determined conclusion, that in cities where the population is very large there are a greater number of men, women, and children, than in cities where the population is less. And I firmly believe there is not a man, woman, or child in all this vast assembly that has reached the age of fifty or upwards but has felt this mighty truth rolling through his breast for centuries." THE REASON WHY.-324. AN American wag says that the reason why more marriages take place in winter than in summer is because the gentlemen require comforters and the ladies muffs. THE CLERGYMAN AND THE LAWYER.-325. THE following incident is of recent date, and the witness was a clergyman. Scene, a crowded court: trial, an action on the warranty of a horse, commonly called a horse cause. Witness, a clergyman, who was sworn in his examinationin-chief that in his opinion the horse was sound.-Counsel: Well, you don't know anything about horses. You're a parson, you know.-Witness: I have a good deal of knowledge respecting horses.-Counsel: You think you have, I dare say, but we may think otherwise. I wonder, now, whether you know the difference between a horse and a cow.-Witness: Yes, I dare say I do.-Counsel: Now, then, tell the jury the difference between a horse and a cow.-Witness: Gentlemen, one great difference between these two animals is, that the one has horns and the other has not; much the same difference, gentlemen, that exists between a bull and a bully (turning to counsel). (Roars of laughter, Judge joining.)-Counsel (very angrily): I dare say you thought that very funny, sir?-Witness: Well, I don't think it was bad, and several of the audience seem to be of the same opinion. EDITORIAL FIX.- -326. A WESTERN editor must be in a bad fix. Having dunned a subscriber for his subscription, he not only refused to pay, but threatened to flog the editor if he stopped the paper. A MEAT BABY.-327. A WEE little girl in Boston besought her mother, when she was going out shopping the other day, to bring her home a baby. The indulgent parent selected a pretty doll, and on her return made the presentation, expecting to see her daughter greatly pleased with it. But the precious child could hardly keep the tears from her eyes, as she disappointedly exclaimed, "I don't want that I want a meat baby!" THE LAPSE OF AGES.-328. AN exchange asks, very innocently, if it is any harm for young ladies to sit in the lapse of ages? Another replies, that it all depends on the kind of ages selected. Those from eighteen to twenty-five it puts down as extra hazardous. PERILS OF THE "FOURTH ESTATE."-329. Ir takes three editors to start a paper in New Orleansone to get killed in a duel, one to die with the yellow fever, and one to write an obituary of the defunct two. MODEL of First-rate Advertisements for a Modern HighPressure Sentimental Novel: Startling, terrific. paralyzing-Ditchville Chronicle. We understand that the publishers of this extraordinary work, in consequence of the immense demand, were obliged to issue three editions at once, and that the united energies of steam and manual labour in New York, have in vain been employed to satisfy the incessant applications for it. On various occasions the police have been called in to protect the booksellers against the insolence of disappointed customers, while several suits for libel are pending against persons who, in a paroxysm of rage, have vented their spleen on the innocent authoress. The excitement has reached a fearful pitch, and all business has been brought to a stand by the absorbing devotion of the public to this great work of genius. In some cases the engineers on the railroads, in perusing it, have been so lost to a sense of duty, as to let the fires of their locomotives go out, and cause the stoppage of trains for hours. Porters may be seen sitting on their wheelbarrows at every corner enjoying its contents. Omnibus horses are growing fat from the refusal of drivers to ply the lash, until they have read it through, line by line, to the fearful catastrophe of the last page, and even the clamorous voice of the newsboy is no longer heard, for he sits crouching over its fascinating pages in his cheerless garret. On the first day of the sale, the doors of the book-stores were strongly barricaded, extra clerks were provided, and yet, despite these precautions, fearful riots took place among the contending crowd, in which, as the historians say, "neither age, sex, nor condition were respected." The truth is, that if many more such books are written in the country, there is great danger that agriculture, commerce, and manufactures will be abandoned, and we shall become nothing else than a nation of novel readers.-The Flambeau of Literature. NOT PARTICULAR.-331. A WESTERN editor says:-" Wood, chips, coke, coal, corn-cobs, feathers, rosin, sawdust, shavings, splinters, dry leaves, old rags, fence-rails, barn-doors, flints, or anything that will burn or strike fire, taken on subscription at this office." TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.-332. A DOWN-EASTER thus distinguishes between different sorts of patriotism: -"Some esteem it sweet to die for one's country; but most of our patriots hold it sweeter still to live upon one's country." POETICAL PATCHWORK.-333. Rock'd in the cradle of the deep, Piping on hollow reeds to his pent sheep, There was a sound of revelry by night, A voice replied, far up the height, What, if a little rain should say, I have not loved the world, nor the world me! Woodman spare that tree! My heart leaps up with joy to see Zaccheus, he did climb that tree; Few of our youth could cope with him. |