At the commencement of the present war, between France and Great Britain, a serjeant in the recruiting service of the latter power, asked a tall countryman of Yorkshire, what bounty he would take to engage in his Majesty’s service? the countryman replied that he was his man, if he would for the first half inch of his stature give him a halfpenny, (one cent.) a penny for the second, for the third, two pence, and counting at that rate, till he had finished his measure; the bargain being struck, and the countryman measuring six feet in length, the calculation was carried on for some time, until the serjeant thought proper to drown the affair in a bowl of punch. I find, upon calculation, that the countryman’s bounty, allowing five dollars to a cubic inch, would (including fractions, which of theselves come to an enormous amount) have been equal in value to 27,364,368,033,632 globes of solid silver, each globe measuring as large as the earth.
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.
ANECDOTE.
A gentleman having put out a candle by accident one night, ordered his waiting man (who was a simple being,) to light it again in the kitchen; “but take care, James,” added he, “that you do not hit yourself against any thing in the dark.”—Mindful of the caution, James stretched out both arms at full length before him, but unluckily, a door that stood half open, passed between his hands and struck him a woeful blow upon the nose; “Dickens!” muttered he, when he recovered his senses a little, “I always heard that I had a plaguy long nose, but I vow I never have thought that it was longer than my arm.”
CURIOUS LAW ANECDOTE.
The following curious anecdote is told, in the Negoristan, of a famous lawyer of Baghdad, called Abu Joseph. It marks several peculiarities in the Mohammedan law, and displays some casuistical ingenuity adapting them to the views of his clients. The Khalif Haran Alrashid had taken a fancy for a female slave belonging to his brother Ibrahim. He offered to purchase her; but Ibrahim, though willing to oblige his sovereign, had sworn, that he would neither sell nor give her away. As all parties wished to remove this difficulty, Abu Joseph was consulted; who advised Ibrahim to give his brother one half of the slave, and to sell him the other. Happy to be relieved from this embarrassment the Khalif ordered 300,000 dinars for the moiety of the slave; which Ibrahim, as a mark of his acknowledgment, immediately presented so the lawyer. But a second difficulty now arose. The Moslem law prohibits all commerce between a man and the wife or concubine of his brother, till she has been remarried and divorced by a third person. Abu Joseph advised the Khalif to marry her to one of his slaves; who, for a proper consideration, would be easily induced to repudiate her on the spot. The ceremony was instantly performed: but the slave, falling in love with his handsome spouse, could not be prevailed upon to consent to a separation.