The oculist was examining the eyes of a patient from Jamaica.  He requested the patient to read the top line of the test card, the letters of which ran N P R T V Z B D F H K O. The patient emitted a spluttering sound.  “Come, come,” urged the doctor, “read the top line.”  The patient frowned and spluttered again.  The doctor was slightly exasperated.  “If you can’t read it, just say so,” he said.

“Well, really, you know,” replied the Jamaican, “the letters are perfectly familiar, but I’m hanged if I know the language.”

“Why have words roots, pa?”

“To make the language grow, my child.”

LAUGHTER

Every time a man laughs he takes a kink out of the chain of life.

“After all,” said Kwoter, “it’s a true saying that ’he laughs best who laughs last.’”

“Not at all,” replied Wise.  “The really true saying is:  ’He laughs best whose laugh lasts.’”

LAUNDRY

“Did the laundry man find those cuffs he lost last week?”

“No, John.”

“The shirts are no good to me without the cuffs.”

“Evidently he figured it that way, too.  This week he lost the shirts.”

LAWS

  The good need fear no law;
  It is his safety, and the bad man’s awe.

  —­Massinger.

“Your case would have been stronger, Mr. McGuire,” said the lawyer, “if you had acted only on the defensive.  But you struck first.  If you had let him strike you first you would have had the law on your side.”

“Yes,” said McGuire.  “Oi’d have had the law on my soide, but Oi’d have had him on me stomach.”

Congressman Hull, of Iowa, sent free seeds to a constituent in a franked envelop, on the corner of which were the usual words, “Penalty for private use, $300.”  A few days later he received a letter which read: 

“I don’t know what to do about those garden-seeds you sent me.  I notice it is $300 fine for private use.  I don’t want to use them for the public.  I want to plant them in my private garden.  I can’t afford to pay $300 for the privilege.  Won’t you see if you can’t fix it so I can use them privately?  I am a law-abiding citizen, and do not want to commit any crime.”

LAWYERS

LAWYER—­“Are you aware, sir, that what you contemplate is illegal?”

CLIENT—­“Certainly.  What do you suppose I came to consult you for?”

An Atlanta lawyer tells of a newly qualified judge in one of the towns of the South who was trying one of his first criminal cases.  The prisoner was an old negro charged with robbing a hen-coop.  He had been in court before on a similar charge and was then acquitted.

“Well Henry,” observed the Judge, “I see you’re in trouble again.”