PUZZLED.—579.
At the Sutter House, Sacramento, a New Yorker, newly arrived, was lamenting his condition, and his folly in leaving an abundance at home, and especially two beautiful daughters, who were just budding into womanhood, when he asked the other if he had a family. "Yes, Sir, I have a wife and six children in New York, and I never saw one of them." After this reply, the couple sat a few minutes in silence, and then the interrogator again commenced. "Were you ever blind, Sir?"—"No, Sir." "Did you marry a widow, Sir?"—"No, Sir." Another lapse of silence. "Did I understand you to say, Sir, that you had a wife and six children living in New York, and had never seen one of them?"—"Yes, Sir, I so stated it." Another and a longer pause of silence. The interrogator again enquired—"How can it be, Sir, that you never saw one of them?" "Why," was the response, "one of them was born after I left." "Oh, ah!" and a general laugh followed. After that, the first New Yorker was especially distinguished as the man who has six children and never saw one of them.
THE PAPER COLLARS.—580.
It is said the Southerns captured at Mansfield two waggons loaded with paper collars, and that General Dick Taylor returned the collars through a flag of truce, with a letter to General Banks, in which the facetious rebel said:—"I have boiled, baked, and stewed these things, and can do nothing with them. We cannot eat them. They are a luxury for which we have no use, and I would like, therefore, to exchange them for a like quantity of hard tack." The joke is a good one, and has convulsed the Western boys, who have no great admiration for the "Liberator of Louisiana." When the Western troops passed General Banks's head-quarters, coming into Alexandria, they groaned, jeered, and called aloud, "How about those paper collars?"
CAUSE AND EFFECT.—581.
Many of the United States papers give with every death they announce the name of the physician who attended the defunct. The following specimen, from a New Orleans journal, will show the business-like manner in which the matter is gone about:—"Died, at his house in Cotton Street, Jonathan Smith, storekeeper. He was a well-doing citizen, and deservedly respected. His wife carries on the store. Gregson physician." The name of the doctor renders the affair complete.
PROFIT AND LOSS.—582.
The keeper of a groggery in New York happened one day to break one of his tumblers. He stood for a moment looking at the fragments, reflecting on his loss; and then turning to his assistant, he cried out, "Tom, put a quart of water into that old Cognac."