COMICAL BLUNDERS
Disinfecting a Telegram
The Milan journal, Pungolo, relates that a Turin merchant, who had correspondents in the French Department of Bouches du Rhône, received at his private house, at Pinerolo, a telegram from Marseilles. Upon reading it he discovered, to his great annoyance, that it must have been sent off some twenty-four hours before it was delivered to him. He called upon the telegraph clerk to account for the delay, and the honest man at once confessed that the despatch had indeed lain for a day and a night in his office. He went on to gravely explain that, as it had come from a place where cholera was known to be raging, he had felt himself bound, in compliance with the regulations of the Italian sanitary authorities, to disinfect it by exposing it to the fumes of burning sulphur!
The Wrong Man Made a Count
When King Gustavus III., of Sweden, was in Paris, he was visited by a deputation of the Sorbonne. That learned body congratulated the king on the happy fortune that had given him so great a man as Scheele, the discoverer of magnesium, as his subject and fellow-countryman. The king, who took small interest in the progress of science, felt somewhat ashamed that he should be so ignorant as never even to have heard of the renowned chemist. He dispatched a courier at once to Sweden with the laconic order, “Scheele is to be immediately raised to the dignity and title of a count.” “His majesty must be obeyed,” said the prime minister, as he read the order; “but who in the world is Scheele?” A secretary was told to make inquiries. He came back with very full information. “Scheele is a good sort of a fellow,” said he; “a lieutenant in the artillery, a capital shot, and first-rate hand at billiards.” The next day the lieutenant became a count, and the illustrious scholar and scientist remained a simple burgher.
Stiefel
M. Bouchitté, a learned Frenchman, has made a curious blunder in “The Dictionnaire de la Conversation.” He has compiled a biography of Jacob Böhme, and supplements it by a list of the numerous writings of the philosophical shoemaker. Among these he cites “Reflections sur les bottes d’Isaie.” The notion of a shoemaker devoting some time to reflections on Isaiah’s boots appears sufficiently in accordance with a well-known axiom invented for the instruction of the craft. But the fact is that what Jacob wrote was an essay on the theological dissertation of Professor Isaias Stiefel. Now, Stiefel is German for boots, and to that extent M. Bouchitté was correct enough in supposing that Jacob Böhme had been casting reflections on Isaiah’s boots.
A Happy Thought
At a dinner party in “town,” in August, there were two sisters present, one a widow who had just emerged from her weeds, the other not long married, whose husband had lately gone to India for a short term. A young barrister present was deputed to take the widow in to dinner. Unfortunately he was under the impression that his partner was the married lady, whose husband had just arrived in India. The conversation between them commenced by the lady’s remarking how hot it was. “Yes, it is very hot,” returned the young barrister. Then a happy thought suggested itself to him, and he added, with a cheerful smile, “but not so hot as the place to which your husband has gone.” The look with which the lady answered this “happy thought” will haunt that unhappy youth till his death.