UNFAIR ADVANTAGE.
One of the best things lately said upon age—a very ticklish subject by the way—was the observation of Mr. James Smith to Mr. Thomas Hill. "Hill," said the former gentleman, "you take an unfair advantage of an accident: the register of your birth was burnt in the great fire of London, and you avail yourself of the circumstance to give out that you are younger than you are."
TWO-FOLD ILLUSTRATION.
Sir Fletcher Norton was noted for his want of courtesy. When pleading before Lord Mansfield, on some question of manorial right, he chanced unfortunately to say, "My Lord, I can illustrate the point in an instant in my own person: I myself have two little manors." The judge immediately interposed, with one of his blandest smiles, "We all know it, Sir Fletcher."
A YANKEE STORY.
An Englishman was bragging of the speed on English railroads to a Yankee traveler seated at his side in one of the cars of a "fast train," in England. The engine bell was rung as the train neared a station. It suggested to the Yankee an opportunity of "taking down his companion a peg or two." "What's that noise?" innocently inquired the Yankee. "We are approaching a town," said the Englishman; "they have to commence ringing about ten miles before they get to a station, or else the train would run by it before the bell could be heard! Wonderful, isn't it? I suppose they haven't invented bells in America yet?" "Why, yes," replied the Yankee, "we've got bells, but can't use them on our railroads. We run so 'tarnal fast that the train always keeps ahead of the sound. No use whatever; the sound never reaches the village till after the train gets by." "Indeed!" exclaimed the Englishman. "Fact," said the Yankee; "had to give up bells. Then we tried steam whistles—but they wouldn't answer either. I was on a locomotive when the whistle was tried. We were going at a tremendous rate—hurricanes were nowhere, and I had to hold my hair on. We saw a two-horse wagon crossing the track about five miles ahead, and the engineer let the whistle on, screeching like a trooper. It screamed awfully, but it wasn't no use. The next thing I knew, I was picking myself out of a pond by the roadside, amid the fragments of the locomotive, dead horses, broken wagon, and dead engineer lying beside me. Just then the whistle came along, mixed up with some frightful oaths that I had heard the engineer use when he first saw the horses. Poor fellow! he was dead before his voice got to him. After that we tried lights, supposing these would travel faster than the sound. We got some so powerful that the chickens woke up all along the road when we came by, supposing it to be morning. But the locomotive kept ahead of it still, and was in the darkness, with the lights close on behind it. The inhabitants petitioned against it; they couldn't sleep with so much light in the night time. Finally, we had to station electric telegraphs along the road, with signal men to telegraph when the train was in sight; and I have heard that some of the fast trains beat the lightning fifteen minutes every forty miles. But I can't say as that is true; the rest I know to be so."—New York Tribune.
ANCIENT DESCENT.
Not long since a certain noble peer in Yorkshire, who is fond of boasting of his Norman descent, thus addressed one of his tenants, who, he thought, was not speaking to him with proper respect: "Do you not know that my ancestors came over with William the Conqueror?" "And, mayhap," retorted the sturdy Saxon, nothing daunted, "they found mine here when they comed." The noble lord felt that he had the worst of it.
BAD'S THE BEST.
Mr. Canning was once asked by an English clergyman how he had liked the sermon he had preached before him.