CULTURE

JIGGS—­“Townsen can read three languages.”

TRIGGS—­“What are they?”

JIGGS—­“Magazines, sporting pages and railroad time-tables.”

HE—­“Not quite a lady, is she?”

SHE—­“No—­but I should say her pearls are ‘cultured,’”

That is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its advancement.—­Beecher.

CURES

A Testimonial

DOCTOR—­“Did that cure for deafness really help your brother?”

PAT—­“Sure enough; he hadn’t heard a sound for years and the day after he took that medicine, he heard from a friend in America.”

CURIOSITY

“My wife is mourning the loss of a ten-thousand-dollar diamond necklace.”

“Why don’t you advertise a thousand reward and no questions asked?”

“Well, I could make good on the thousand, but I doubt my wife’s ability to fulfill the rest of that contract.”

William E. Weber of the First National Bank says a woman came up to his window the other day with a cashier’s check for fifty dollars.

“What denomination,” asked Mr. Weber in his pleasantest manner.

“Lutheran,” replied the woman.  “What are you?”

CURRENT EVENTS

MRS. BARR—­“Henry, what are current events?”

MR. BARR—­“Anything shocking, my dear”—­Life.

CUSTOM

Foote, the comedian, dined one day at a country inn, and the landlord asked how he liked his fare.

“I have dined as well as any man in England,” said Foote.

“Except the mayor,” cried the landlord.

“I except nobody,” said he.

“But you must!” screamed the host.

“I won’t!”

“You must!”

At length a petty magistrate took Foote before the mayor, who observed that it had been customary in that town for a great number of years always to “except the mayor,” and accordingly fined him a shilling for not conforming to ancient custom.  Upon this decision, Foote paid the shilling, at the same time observing that he thought the landlord the greatest fool in Christendom—­except the mayor.

  To follow foolish precedents, and wink
    With both our eyes, is easier than to think.

  —­Cowper.

  Custom does often reason overrule,
    And only serves for reason to the fool.

  —­Rochester.

DACHSHUNDS

An Englishman sat at a New York boarding-house table.  One of the boarders was telling a story in which a “dachshund” figured.  She was unable for a moment to think of the word.