It is said that before the opening of the Glasgow Exhibition the laying out of the garden and grounds were under discussion, and it was suggested that a gondola would look ornamental on the water.
"Well," said a member of the town council, "I think we may as well have a pair, and they might breed."
Was He a Liberal or a Tory?
A keen politician, in the City of Glasgow, heard one day of the death of a party opponent, who in a fit of a mental aberration, had shot himself. "Ah," said he, "gane awa' that way by himsel', has he? I wish that he had ta'en twa or three days' shooting among his friends before he went!"
Advice on Nursing
A bachelor of seventy and upwards came one day to Bishop Alexander, of Dunkeld, and said he wished to marry a girl of the neighborhood whom he named. The bishop, a non-juring Scottish Episcopalian of the middle of last century, and himself an old bachelor, inquired into the motive of this strange proceeding, and soon drew from the old man the awkward apology, that he married to have a nurse. Too knowing to believe such a statement, the good bishop quietly replied, "See, John, then, and make her ane."
A Critic on His Own Criticism
Lord Eldon, so remarkable for his naïf expression, being reminded, of a criticism which he had formerly made upon a picture which he himself had forgotten, inquired, "Did I say that?" "Yes." "Then if I said that," quoth the self-satisfied wit, "it was deevilish gude."
Holding A Candle to the Sun
A wet and witty barrister, one Saturday encountered an equally Bacchanalian senatorial friend, in the course of a walk to Leith. Remembering that he had a good joint of mutton roasting for dinner, he invited his friend to accompany him home; and they accordingly dined together, secundum morem solitum. After dinner was over, wine and cards commenced; and, as they were each fond of both, neither thought of reminding the other of the advance of time, till the church bell next day disturbed them in their darkened room about a quarter before eleven o'clock. The judge then rising to depart, Mr. —— walked behind him to the outer door, with a candle in each hand, by way of showing him out. "Tak' care, my lord, tak' care," cried the kind host most anxiously, holding the candles out of the door into the sunny street, along which the people were pouring churchwards; "Tak' care; there's twa steps."