AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
155 
meals a day, and he don’t care much if two 
of them are made up of roasted potatoes and 
a little dirty salt. Cash is a good adviser, 
while Credit is a good fellow to be on visit¬ 
ing terms with. If you want double chins 
and contentment, do business with cash. . A 
special edict with a Vermillion tail. 
j&mqr-proli. 
“A little humor now and then, 
Is relished by the best of men.” 
THE RETORT. 
by a. r. MORr.is. 
Old Birch, who taught a village school. 
Wedded a maid of homespun habit; 
He was as stubborn as a mule, 
And she was as playful as a rabbit. 
Poor Kate had scarce become a wife, 
Before her husband sought to make her 
The pink of country polished life, 
And prim and formal as a quaker. 
How to Tame a Madman. —A workman at 
a Lunatic Asylum in England, left a chisel, 
more than three feet long, on a recent occa¬ 
sion, in one of the wards. A furious patient 
seized it, and threatened to kill with it any 
one who approached him. Every one then 
in the ward immediately retreated from it. 
At length the attendant opened the door, and 
balancing the key of the ward on his hand, 
walked slowly toward the dangerous mad¬ 
man, looking intently at it. “ His attention,” 
said the attendant, “ was immediately at¬ 
tracted thus. He came towards me and 
asked: 
“ ‘ What are you doing with that V 
“ ‘ I am trying to balance this key on my 
hand,’ said I, ‘ and I can do it; but you can 
not balance that chisel in that way on the 
back of your hand.’ 
“As he balanced it carefully and was ex¬ 
tending it toward me, I took it off very qui¬ 
etly, and without making any comment upon 
it. He seemed a little chagrined at having 
lost his weapon, but he made no attempt to 
regain it, and in a short time all irritation 
passed away.” 
One day the tutor went abroad, 
And simple Kitty sadly missed him ; 
When he returned, behind her lord 
She slyly stole, and fondly kissed him ! 
The husband’s anger rose !—and red 
And white his face alternate grew ! 
“ Less freedom ma’am '.’’—Kate sighed and said, 
“ Oh dearI didn't know ’twits you!” 
Dr. Keene died of a surfeit, from a roast 
goose he had partaken too liberally of, where¬ 
upon a witling wrote the following 
EPIGRAM. 
Here lies Dr. Keene, the good Bishop of Chester, 
Who ate a fat goose, and could not digest her. 
A DUNNING LETTER. 
To avoid all proceedings unpleasant, 
1 beg you will pay what is due ; 
If you do you’ll oblige me at present, 
If you don’t, then I’ll oblige you! 
Genuine Wit. —At a party a few evenings 
since, as a young gentleman named Frost 
was eating an apple in a quiet corner by him¬ 
self, a young lady came up and gaily asked 
him “ why he did not share with her 1” He 
good naturedly turned the side which was 
not bitten towards her, saying, 
“ Here, take it, if you wish.” 
“ No, I thank you,” she exclaimed, look¬ 
ing at him archly, “ I would rather have one 
that is not Frost bitten,” and merrily ran off 
to join the company, leaving poor Frost with 
a thaw in his heart. 
Tired of S(h)inning. —One of our big spec¬ 
ulators in real estate, says the St. Louis 
Democrat, met a friend and relative in the 
street a few days since, when the following 
dialogue took place : 
“ How d’ye do, O-?” 
“ Not very well, Ez.” 
“ Why, what’s the matter ? you should be 
in good spirits; money is getting easier ; lots 
are rising.” 
“ Well, ’tisn’t that altogether. I was down 
in S.’s office a whole hour to-day. We were 
talking about the other world. You know he 
is a Swedenborgian. He says we will be 
doing the same kind of work in the next 
world, that we have been engaged in in this. 
I tell you Ez., that’s what makes me feel bad. 
I have been shinning it here for the last 
twenty years, and I don’t like the idea of 
shinning it to all eternity.” 
Prosperity is the only test that a vulgar 
man can’t pass through. If a man has any 
thing mean in his disposition, a little good 
luck is sure to bring it out. 
Tastes Differ. —Punch says, “Where 
there is a looking-glass in the room, you 
will generally find a knot of Frenchmen as¬ 
sembled round it. Where there is a fire in 
the room, you will generally find a group of 
Englishmen hanging in front of it, with the 
backs of two or three of them, their coat¬ 
tails uplifted, turned elegantly towards it.” 
Punch might have added, “ Where there is 
a bar in the room, you will generally find a 
number of American bucks before it,' suck¬ 
ing juleps and smoking cigars.” 
The Sweetheart. —A very pretty young 
woman went to the Post-office, with a letter 
and no direction, and said to the Postmaster, 
“ Send that to my sweetheart.” 
The Postmaster took it, looked at it, and 
said, “ What is his name, and where does 
he live ?” 
The girl blushingly replied, “ Ah, that is 
the very thing I don’t want any one to find 
out!” 
Of course the bachelor P. M. kept it him¬ 
self. 
Covetousness. —Shakespeare gives the fol¬ 
lowing : 
Master. —“ I marvel how the fishes live in 
the sea.” 
Fisherman. —“ Why, as men do a-land ; the 
big ones eat up the little ones. I can com¬ 
pare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to 
a whale ; it plays and tumbles, driving the 
poor fry before him, and at last devours 
them all at a mouthful. Such whales have 
1 heard of on the land, who never leave off 
gaping, till they’ve swallowed the whole par¬ 
ish, church, steeple, bell and all.” 
Miles of Clothing. —Mr. Ewbank, in one 
of his mechanical essays, thus speaks of the 
miles of clothes we wear: 
“ In winter a lady is enwrapped in a hun¬ 
dred miles of thread ; she throws over her 
shoulders from thirty to fifty in a shawl. A 
gentleman winds between three and four 
miles around his neck, and uses four more 
in a pocket handkerchief. At night he 
throws off his clothing, and buries himself 
like a larva in four or five hundred miles of 
convolved filaments. 
The following advertisement appeared 
in an Irish paper : “ Whereas John Hall has 
fraudulently taken away several articles of 
wearing apparel without my knowledge, this 
is therefore to inform him that if he does 
not forthwith return the same, his name shall 
be made public /” 
Tooth-Achial Conundrums. — The follow¬ 
ing are “ going the rounds ” under this head, 
though we have not yet seen it stated 
whether they are efficacious to cause., or 
cure the tooth ache : 
What street in London puts you in mind 
of a tooth which has pained you for a long 
time 1 Long Acre. 
When should you apply a sovereign reme¬ 
dy to your tooth ? When it is a-Icing. 
By what ejaculatory exclamation would 
you declare that your tooth pained you % It 
aches, by gum. 
Why does an aching tooth impose silence 
on the sufferer? Because it makes him hold 
his jaw. 
To what town in Poland should you go to 
have it extracted ? Fulltusk. 
Which of your teeth are like a mantau- 
maker's fingers and thumb when she is cut¬ 
ting out a dress. Incisors. 
When do your teeth usurp the functions of 
the tongue? When they are chattering. 
Why is it, then, not to be wondered at that 
your teeth cause frequent disturbance in 
your mouth ? Because they often make 
there more than one row. 
A Court Scene.— “ William, look up ! tell 
us who made you, William ; do you know ?” 
William, who was considered a fool, 
screwing his face, and looking thoughtful and 
somewhat bewildered, slowly answered— 
“ Moses, I s’pose.” 
“ That will do. Now,” said Counsellor 
Gray, addressing the Court, “the witness 
says he ‘ s’poses ’ Moses made him. This 
certainly is an intelligent answer, more so 
than I supposed him capable of giving, for it 
shows he has some faint idea of Scripture. 
But. I submit, may it please the Court, that 
this is not sufficient tojustify his being sworn 
as a witness in this case. No, sir, it is not 
such an answer as a witness qualified to test¬ 
ify should give.” 
“ Mr. Judge,” said the fool, “may I ask 
the lawyer a question?” 
“Certainly,” replied the Judge, “ ask him 
any question you please.” 
“Wal, then, Mr. Lawyer, who do you 
s’pose made you ?” 
“ Aaron, I s’pose,” said the Counsellor, 
imitating the witness. 
After the mirth had somewhat subsided, • 
the witness exclaimed— 
“ Wal, now, we do read in the good book 
that Aaron once made a calf, but who’d a 
thought the tarnal critter had got in here?” 
Story with a Moral.— Many years ago, a 
merchant, worth near a million dollars, 
stood upon a wharf watching the approach 
of a rich ship, just arriving in port, of which 
he was the owner. He was elated with the 
good fortune, and looked lofty and arrogant. 
A poor seaman, suffering under grievous 
maladies stood near, and having experienced 
how changeful is life, he ventured to tell the 
triumphant merchant that riches had wings. 
“ Pooh !” said the merchant, “ there ! you 
see that diamond ring I take from my finger ? 
You see me throw it into the river. As 
well may you expect to see that ring again, 
as to see me a poor man !” 
Some days afterwards the merchat gave a 
great dinner to his friends. Among the lux¬ 
uries provided for the feast, was a salmon, 
from the river. The cook, happening to 
open the stomach of the salmon, found there, 
to her great surprise, the merchant’s dia¬ 
mond ring! She carried it to him. His 
countenance fell, for he remembered his 
boastful language. 
The dinner was heartless and tedious to 
him. The rich wine only made his thoughts 
the more poignant. He slept none that 
night. He became “ an altered man.” His 
speculations were all unfortunate. Loss sue- 
