Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1875 — PHUNNYGRAMS. [ARTICLE]

PHUNNYGRAMS.

—Here is a capital subject for some of our debating societies to wrestle with during the remainder of the winter, viz.: “ Resolved, That the man who has no coat to his stomach is poorer than he who has no coat to his back." — Norristown Herald. —Kalakaua remarked to a friend before leaving Washington that the ladies of that city appeared to him “ very forward.” One of his attendants, who chanced at the moment to espy a fash-ionably-dressed female with an enormous bustle, expressed the opinion that they seemed to him principally “ backward.” —The difference: When a lady slips on the sidewalk she gracefully sits down and that’s the end of it A man, however, always tries to catch himself on the other foot, drops all his bundles and uses his arms for a balancing-pole, struggles desperately for about ten seconds in a vain endeavor to recover his equilibrium, and finally goes sprawling like a collapsed windmill. —“ I declare, Joseph,” sighed a Detroit mother, as she put a patch on young Joseph’s pants, “ they must have awful hard seats in school. This is the fourth time I’ve had to patch these pants in two weeks.” “Thev have, mother,” he promptly replied; ‘“just tears a boy all to pieces.” The old lady ought to see him riding down hill on a shingle with the American flag sticking up alongside his ear.— Detroit Press. —“ You jist ought to have been over to q,ur house last night !” shouted one small boy to another on the Campus Martins yesterday. “ Why—making pictures?” inquired the other. “Naut much! Humph! No, sir; our folks went away and we had pop-corn, two kinds of sweetened water, milk and camphor, drew the dog around in the table-cloth and the hired girl told us eight ghoststories.” — Detroit Tribune. —A Texas reporter says: “We saw a country girl on the streets yesterday who had just bought tnd was wearing a pair of high-heeled bootees. But didn’t she wriggle, though! It was the first time she had ever experienced those high heels. ‘John,’ said she, ‘you must let me have your anmmtiH get used to these dog-on heels of mine.’ John gave her his arm, bnt it was as much as he could do to keep the little country miss steady.”

—When the Duke of Newcastle was in this country, a citizen of Cincinnati, who had managed to get introduced to <the Duke, thus introduced his wife at Pike’s Opera-House: “Duke, let me introduce you to my wife, Mrs. Judge tbe cousin of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, and the daughter of Maj.-Gen. —■ —, of Kentucky, who was brutally massacred by the British and Indians while gloriously fighting for his country at tbe battle of River Raisen.” —A calculation of the effect of a slight gratuity on a hotel or restaurant waiter comes out something as follows: Three cents —Slight bow; apt to inspect coin as if expecting it to change into something larger. Five cents—“ I>liged.” Six cents —“Thank you.” Ten cents — “ Thank you, Colonel.” Fifteen cents—- “ Thank you, General.” Twenty cents— Low bow; flourish of napkin; formula as above. Quarter —Profound bow; alacrity to door held open. —There are two gentlemen in New York, says the. .Sun., brothers, well known as men-about-town.* We will call them Bill and Jim. Bill stutters a little. Said Jim one day: “ Bill, I want you to go with me and see a Scotch terrier. He is the great ratter in this city. We must have that dog.” “I’ll go,” said Bill. They went. The terrier was brought out, and a rat was loosened wi h him. To fulfill the character ascribed to him, the tejrier should have dispatched a certain number of rats within one minute. But a single rat seemed to be fully a match for him. Indeed, the longer they fought the more it looked as if the, rat would prove the better of the two. The dog shook and the rat bit; but the rat seemed to bite the hardest. Finally Bill broke out: “ J-J-J J-Jim,” said he—“ buy the rat!” A Lower Lake correspondent of the Napa (Cal.) Reporter has the following to say about Hiram Allen's daughter, who is’a remarkably good shot: “I have often thought that I would like to give your readers a sketch of one of our Lake County notables. Miss Molly Allen, a little maiden of some twelve or thirteen years old, who has killed more game with her small telescope rifle than any other two hunters of my acquaintance. She has made thirty dollars bounty on squirrel-tails alone the past summer; and if you choose to figure tbe thing op —tbe tails being only five cents each—you will begin to have an idea of her success in that line. At a shooting match last winter she took so many prises that her bearded opponents ruled her out of the ring.”