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JAPANESE ANECDOTES. 
A very economical old fellow, named Kisaburo, 
once took lodgings near a shop to which the epicu¬ 
reans of Yeddo resorted daily lor eels fried in soy, a 
kind of sauce used in Japan. The odor was wafted 
into his quarters, and being a man of strong imagin¬ 
ation, he daily enjoyed his frugal meal ol boiled rice 
and the savory smoke of fried eels, 
and thus saved the usual expense 
of fish and vegetables. 
The eel-frier discovering this, 
made up his mind to charge his 
stingy neighbor for the smell of 
his eels, and paid him a visit, car¬ 
rying with him his bill. Kis, 
taking it in good humor, called to 
his wife to bring him out the cash- 
bag. After jingling the bag of 
money, he touched it on the bill, 
and again locking it in the box, told 
his wife to return it. 
The eel-man, in amazement, cried 
out, “Well, are you not going to 
pay me ? ” “ Oh, no ! ” said he ; 
“ you charged me for the smell of 
your eels. I have paid you with 
the sound of my money 
I v 
“I suppose our minister preaches well,” remarked 
a Michigan lady, “ but I’m so busy looking at the 
fashions that I really never hear anything he says.” 
A Scotch professor in the University of Edinburgh 
was experimenting before his pupils with some com¬ 
bustible substances, when, as he was mixing them, 
they exploded, shattering the vial which lie held into 
fragments. Pie held up a small piece of glass, and 
said, very gravely, “ Gentlemen, I have made this 
experiment often with this very same vial, and never 
knew it to break in my hands before.” 
A favorite method of mischief 
among small and big boys in Japan, 
is to double a stiff straw, and insert 
it into the nostril of a sleeping per¬ 
son, who wakes to find his nostril 
distended like that of an ox. Once 
there was a lazy old fellow upon 
whom children were fond of playing 
this trick. Falling asleep, the chil¬ 
dren played this snap-game upon 
him. Waking, and finding his 
nose tickling, he passed his hand 
over his face, and found a string 
tied to something like a loop in his 
nose. The old fellow, believing 
himself to be in another world, 
condemned to another state of ex¬ 
istence, exclaimed, “ Well, well, 
have I become an ox, condemned 
to wear a ring in my nose, as a 
punishment for my sins ? ” 
A poor young mother gave up 
her child to another woman to take 
care of, while she herself went out 
to service. After she became able, 
and the child was older, she went 
to claim her back. The woman 
having become fond of her, refused 
to give her up, claiming her as her 
child. In her trouble, she appealed 
to a judge for help. The judge 
ordered each of them to take hold 
of an arm of the child and pull! The true mother 
took gentle hold, the other pulled hard; the child 
cried out with pain, when the real mother gave up. 
The judge then angrily addressed the false mother, 
and restored the child to her own mother. E. L. R, 
A young man in Jersey City was urged to marry, 
but replied : “I don’t see it. My father was a single 
man, and he always got along well enough.” 
Memories of By-Gose Days. 
A facetious person vent into a village shop, and 
was observed to be looking about, when the proprietor 
remarked to him that they didn’t keep whiskey. “ It 
would save you a good many steps if you did,” was 
the visitor’s reply. 
A colored minister, wishing to notify his congrega¬ 
tion that the Sunday afternoon services would be dis¬ 
continued, said : “ Hereafter in the afternoon there 
will be no preaching in the afternoon hereafter.” 
He was an applicant for the position of writing- 
teacher in one of the public schools. They gave 
him a copy-book, and asked him for a specimen of 
what he could do. He took up a pen, and in a 
handwriting that looked like a flash of lightning that 
had mistaken the direct road, wrote as follows : 
“ Sorrer dosn’t kill folkesas fast as green gooseburys.” 
A man borrows 800 francs of a friend, for which 
he signs eight notes of 100 francs each, payable 
monthly. The first falls due, and is protested. 
“ This is rather promising for the others,” remarks 
the lender. “ Oh, they will be pro¬ 
tested likewise,” calmly replies the 
debtor. “ Then why on earth did 
you sign the notes?” “So that 
the shock would not be so great to 
you. You will only lose 100 francs 
at a time this way.” 
Jones says that the white flan¬ 
nel suit he bought a year ago 
proved a very economical invest¬ 
ment, and has been of much use in 
bis family. Jones weighs two hun¬ 
dred and fifty pounds, and when he 
bought it, it fitted him remarkably 
well. After the first washing, his 
eldest sou, who weighs one hundred 
pounds less than Jones Senior, 
found it an excellent fit. Two 
washings more made the garment 
delightful for a youth of nine, and 
at the end of the season the baby 
was adorned with the habiliments, 
which had shrunk just enough to 
make a fit for a child out of creep¬ 
ing-clothes. 
During Dr. Payson’s last ill. 
ness, a friend, coming into his 
room, remarked familiarly, “Well, 
I am sorry to see you lying here on 
your back.” “ Do you know what 
God puts us on our backs for ? ” 
asked Dr. Payson, smiling. “ No,” 
was the answer. “ In order that 
we may look upward.” 
The following “estray” notice 
was sent to one of the Denver 
Sheriff’s officers: “Rund avay—1 
red and vite caf. His tu bebint leg 
vas black, he vas a she caf. 
Enipotti vot bring him pack pais 5 
tollar. Jacob Zudering, 
Clear Creek, 
tree miles pehind te pridge.” 
“ Things is getting slouch ways 
in dis country, I declar' to grashus 
ef dey ain’t,” said an old negro, the 
other day. “Fust cum de catty - 
piller, den de chicken kollery, an’ 
now here cum de grasshoppers; an’ 
I hear, talk de udder day, dat a 
nigger was pisened with a mush- 
million. Looks like hard times.” 
Sophocles’ tragedy of “Antigone” was recently 
produced at the Theater Royal Gallery, Dublin, with 
Mendelssohn’s music, and the gods were so well 
pleased that, according to their habits, they demanded 
a sight of the author. “ Bring out Sapherclaze,’ 
they yelled. The manager explained that Sophocles 
had been dead 2,000 years or more, and couldn’t well 
come. Thereat a gamin shouted, “ Then chuck us 
out his mummy.” 
