Wit and Humor of the Day

[…] To have both shot immediately unless they gave it up.

Thursday night a policeman collared a suspicious looking character in a hallway on Jefferson avenue, and as he dragged the man out on the walk he said, "Who are you?" "John Haynes," was the answer. "And what do you do?" "In the show business." "What do you show?" "I'll show you my heels," replied the man, suddenly jerking loose, and he was as good as his word. — Detroit Free Press.

I do not know that the treatise of Brillat Savarin on the "Physiology of Taste" deserves its fame. I know its repute, and I have heard it called the France of France. But the subject is so large and exigent that a few particulars, and those the pleasures of the epicure, cannot satisfy. I know many men of taste whose single opinions and practice would interest much more. It should be extended to gardens and grounds, and mainly one thing should be illustrated, that life in the country wants all things on a low tone — wants coarse clothes, old shoes, no fleet horse that a man cannot hold, but an old horse that will stand tied in a pasture half a day without risk, so allowing the picnic party the full freedom of the woods. — R. W. Emerson.

Taglioni, the dancer, is worth three million dollars. Herbert Spencer, the philosopher, is not worth a cent; yet both are evolutionists.

"Have you any five cent cigars?" asked an impecunious looking fellow of an East Side tobacco man yesterday. "Yes," replied the tobacconist, and he placed a handful on the showcase for the man, whose clothing showed that he had squandered his summer, if not his earnings, to select from. Running his eye over the lot and without being satisfied, he asked for ten-cent ones. The latter did not tickle his fancy, and, assuming the air of an Astor, he boldly inquired for fifteen-cent ones. Selecting one he poised it between his fingers, and with the tone of a played-out insurance solicitor asked, "Would you take a man's last cent for a cigar?" The unsuspecting merchant replied that he would, and that settled the bargain, for the customer placed one cent on the showcase, bit the small end of the Havana, applied the torch and leisurely strolled out puffing his high-toned cigar. — Oswego Palladium.

We propose to give our young readers a few points with regard to the candy question. The next time that your mother predicts that you "will not have a tooth in your head" from eating so much candy, reply pleasantly, but firmly, that Henry, Duke of Beaufort, for forty years ate nearly a pound of sugar candy daily, and yet died at the age of eighty with a full set of perfect teeth in his head. If this is not enough, crush your parent completely by remarking, coldly, that every schoolboy knows that Cleland, in his "Institutes of Health," mentions a Mr. Mahony who was extremely fond of sugar and addicted to its use, and who reached the ripe age of 106 years, having good teeth until he was four-score, and then actually cut a new set! If your father comes to your mother's relief, assure him that teeth have been soaked in syrup for a whole year without any perceptible effect, and that the best authorities now say that sugar is good for children. Now, if this isn't a firebrand, we don't know what is. — N. Y. Star.

"Maria," observed Mr. Holcomb, as he was putting on his clothes, "there ain't no patch on them breeches yet." "I can't fix it now, no way. I'm too busy." "Well, give me the patch, then, and I'll carry it around with me. I don't want people to think I can't afford the cloth."

When the news of the rower Hamill's death was flashed through the country, ten or eleven influential journals announced simultaneously that his race of life was over. Seven other papers alluded to the deceased as a gentleman and a scholar. Five or six were merely sad about it. This singular unanimity on the part of so many papers shows how hard up the paragraphers were that day. They were all in the same boat, as it were. — Chicago Times.

On a cold, dark winter night, when a young married man is taking in the clothes, with frozen fingers and a mouth full of clothes-pins, nothing gives him a greater feeling of despair than to hear his wife open the back window and say, "Joseph, you may bring yours in, but I guess you can hang mine back." — N. Y. Herald.

"What are you doing here, hiding around my house?" inquired a Michigan-avenue man the other day, as he espied a dapper looking youth dodging behind a bay window. "Oh, sir, I'm not a thief," exclaimed the young man. "You're not; what are you then?" demanded the house owner. "You see, sir," was the stammering reply, "it's leap year, and I just see my girl coming down the street!" Then the kind-hearted man, taking in the situation, extended the right hand of fellowship to the youth and said, "Boy, you have my sympathies." — Chicago Journal.

After giving Sandy certain directions about kirk matters, the minister sniffed once or twice, and remarked, "Saunders, I fear you have been 'tasting' this morning." "'Deed, sir," replied Sandy, with the coolest effrontery, set off with a droll glance of his brown eyes, "'deed, sir, I was just gaein' to observe I thocht there was a smell o' speerits amang us this mornin'."

A Danbury couple have a nice little daughter of some five summers. A lady visitor observed to the mother: "What a pretty child you have! She must be a great comfort to you." "She is, indeed," said the fond mother. "When I'm mad at John I don't speak to him. She calls him to his meals, and tells him to get the coal, and other things that I want. She's real handy."

Pull-backs have their drawbacks, as a young woman of Keokuk, Ia., found when she went to a Masonic entertainment, last week. She looked at the banquet tables with horror, ejaculating to her escort: "Good gracious! Are they going to sit down? I didn't expect that! I ain't fixed to sit down." He found a place for her alongside the mantel-piece, where she could take her supper standing. But it was a very narrow escape.

The woman suffragists of New Haven are wrestling with the question, "Who is the superfluous woman?" Of course we can't tell, but we know a number of family men in town, each of whom thinks he has married her. — Norwalk Bulletin.

There is a lady out in California 140 years old, who is the only woman in the entire State who squarely acknowledges her age when asked. In fact, it is said that she shows a tendency to over-state rather than underestimate her years.

A Quakertown man has solved Mrs. Livermore's query — What shall we do with our daughters? He has purchased two washing machines and will take in washing. His wife and seven daughters are to do the work, and he will superintend the business.

The other day a would-be fashionable lady called at a neighbor's at what she thought would be supper time. "Come in," said the neighbor; "we are having a tableau." "I'm so glad," said the visitor. "I thought I smelt 'em, and I like them better than anything for supper."

Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow."

A Toledo editor has received the following letter of inquiry from a girl in Cleveland, which he ought to answer at once: "Cleveland, Dec. 25, 1875. Dear Mr. Editor. i wont to tell you my trobles. last Cbrisnias day i met a young man from Toledo who told me he loved me and talked ever so nice and said he wanted me to be his little wife. and i said i would be his little wife. now i want to know if you know him. he said his name was frank, and he had gold colored hair, and he said he worked in a tailor store. please tell me if he is fit company for me. i was born of poor but irish parents and i dont want to be fooled by him. please tell me. direct to Maggie. P.S. i used to be a chambermaid in the Weddell house and i am purty good looking."

Scrumptious weddings they have in Mississippi. At the last one we are told that the bride was "exquisitely attired in heavy white gros-grain silk, with trailing wreaths of starry jasmine and milky myrtle blooms, as delicately perfect as if fashioned by the fairy hand of nature. Over the white splendor of the silk, toning its gloss into a glimmer, dashed foamy waves of illusion, as if the sea of happiness that seemed stretching out at her feet had flung up visible white spray to bless her bridal garments. Crowned with her bridal coronet, half hidden in the fleecy folds of her wedding veil, this young lady reminded one of a radiant star in a veil of mist." — Music.

At a recent funeral of a Danbury man, one of the neighbors, a female of very sympathetic nature, was so deeply affected as to attract the attention of those present. The wife of the deceased, a tall, raw-boned woman, noticing the attention paid to the neighbor, kindly approached her, and in a hoarse whisper, indicative of the most intense disgust, demanded, "Who's running this funeral?"