SHERIDAN.
Being asked whether he thought Mr. O’Brien was right in his assertion, that many thousands of the electors of Westminster would vote for the Duke of Northumberland’s porter were he put up, Sheridan coolly replied—“No; my friend O’Brien is wrong; but they might for Mr. Whitbread’s porter!”
SLAVE TRADE.
Sir John Doyle being told in the House of Commons by those interested in keeping up the slave trade, that the slaves were happy, he said that it reminded him of a man whom he had once seen in a warren, sewing up the mouth of a ferret: he remonstrated with the man upon the cruelty of the act, but he answered—“Lord, sir, the ferret likes it above all things.”
NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS.
A fire happening at a public house, a man, passing at the time, entreated one of the firemen to play the engine upon a particular door, and backed his request by the bribe of a shilling. The fireman consequently complied, upon which the arch rogue exclaimed—“You’ve done what I never could do, for, egad, you’ve liquidated my score!”
BON MOT.
A young clergyman, having the misfortune to bury five wives, being in company with a number of ladies, was severely rallied by them upon the circumstance. At last one of them rather impertinently put the question to him, “How he managed to have such good luck?” “Why, madam,” said the other, “I knew they could not live without contradiction, therefore I let them have their own way.”
BRUISING MATCH.
A provincial paper, giving an account of a bruising match between two men of the names of Hill and Potter, concluded by saying—“That after sixteen rounds, Hill beat his antagonist hollow.”