Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1885 — PITH AND POINT. [ARTICLE]

PITH AND POINT.

The fisherman’s proverb, “It is easier to tell a lie than it is to catch a small fish.”- White Hall Times. If you stick a sword through a loaf of bread, you will have the staff of life on the point of death. - Carl Pretzel's Weekly. When Stiggins died from Cholera, brought on by eating rhubarb pie, the physicians solemnly decided that he died of too much pie-eat-he.— Texas Siftings. ' Some men whom the Almighty in-5 tended to be fools have to have the ih-J formation driven into them with tlie bung-starter of common sense.— Fall River Advance. If there is anything below the cjouds that will make an angel red around the eyes it is to see a nearsighted bachelor try to thread a needle. —Chicago Ledger. Miss Helen Gardner claims to be the only woman infidel lecturer in the world. Up to the hour of going to press this was enough—if not twice too many.— Norristown Herald: All doctors agree that to enjoy good health the mind must be kept in a cheerful condition; but no doctor can give a man points that will make him joyous when his collar don’t fit.—Chicago Ledger. Mary Hill, of California, is 22 years old, good looking, owns 400 acres of land, shoots a revolver, and advertises that she wants to marry; a newspaper man. Eh! boys—where are you?— Detroit Free Press.

How goes it with you now, my lad, How goes it with you now? Why this sad whehceness in your mien, This thinkness on your blow? Alas ! I am a funnv man, By Momue held in thrall. And I have just forgot a joke Which I cannot reeall. Washington “Tis love that makes the world go round,” warbles a poet. You’r right old boy. It does make a fellow dizzy, especially when he sees seventeen dishes of ice-cream stowed away in a little 3x4 stomach, at the cost of his whole week’s salary.— St. Paul Herald. James Porter, a Kentucky tavern keeper, was eight feet high. It is necessary for tavern keepers in that state to be giants. The Kentuckians run up such high scores for drinks that an ordinary sized man can’t reach the top of the slate without mounting a step-lad-der —and that’s rather inconvenient.— Norristown Herald.

Several gentlemen were standing about the door at a swell reception when a fine looking lady passed down the hall. “By Jove,” said one, “that’s a looking woman.” “Very imposing, indeed,” said another. “You bet she is,” said a third: “I know, for I’ve been her husband for ten years.” —Merchant Traveler. Many devices have been put in use by actors and lecturers to keep from smiling, but the simplest and most effective is to put a small wooden button in the mouth, and bite down on it every time the impulse to laugh makes itself manifest. Some grit their teeth or cringe their toes, and a famous minstrel for a long time resorted to the scheme of sticking a pin in his thigh.— Baltimore Herald. .

A minister at a recent wedding came very near being broke up right in the midst of the ceremony, and all by the bride, a pretty, fragile, young, little thing, and one of his favorite parishioners. She had insisted on the most rigid of the Episcopal Church forms, and her Unitarian minister had humored her. Imagine, then, his surprise as he dictated the lines: “Promising to love, honor, and obey,” to have her distinctly alter her. oath to; “Promising to love, honor, and be gay,” looking him directly in the face the while. He had some difficulty to control his inclination to laugh, and not being prepared for the contingency, let it slip.— Boston Home Journal.