DID NOT RETURN HER BOW

Mrs. Flatbush: "Who is that woman you just bowed to?" Mrs. Bensonhurst: "Oh, she's my next door neighbor." "But she didn't return your bow."

"No; she never returns anything."-Selected.

A GREAT CALAMITY

"When we first came here," said a Dakota man to his visitor from the East, "our nearest neighbor lived twelve miles away." "The land suz!" she cried. "Who'd yer borrer from?-The Christian Herald.

BULLS

HUMOURS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
BY JOSEPH MALINS

There is no doubt that one great need of a public speaker is to be able to think while he is "on his legs" facing the audience. While uttering one sentence he should be able to think of the next. This is possible, but possible only when a perfect presence of mind is acquired. It is possible, by use and training, even for one who halts in common conversation, to be nevertheless fluent when on the platform. It is lack of this attainable self-possession which causes speakers to blunder. We have heard a Temperance speaker say: "Dear friends, I have to say a few words on the Temperance cause-and we all know the terrible harm it does all over the country." Another deplores the fact that a friend resorts to "the frequent use of the daily glass." We heard a notable lady speaker speak of slum children "brought into the world with no more idea of home comfort than the children of negroes in Africa." We heard one speaker say, "I rise emphatically," and another said, "I stand prostrate with astonishment." Yet another feelingly told us it was "not the platform-speaker, but the house-to-house visitation, and the

Utterance of the Silent Word

by the caller, which did the most good." Then we heard the statement that "the previous speaker's suggestions were very suggestive," and that another speaker's remarks were "miscalculated to mislead." We have heard the speaker, who always misplaced his "h's" pray "that we might be brought to the haltar." There was a flight of fancy when a speaker asked, “Suppose if a modern balloon dropped upon an uninhabited island, what would the natives say?" The scientific lecturer said, of his coming experiment, that "all depends upon the present condition of the body about to be created." A town councillor spoke of "the rivers and streams that abut on the borough boundaries."

It was in another address on touring that the young speaker

said, "the mountain was too steep for a donkey to climb, so I didn't attempt it"; and the subject was natural history when the speaker said, "I am describing

The Hideous Hippopotamus,

but you boys will have no idea of what it is like unless you pay attention and look at me." More pompous was the speaker who began with saying, “The proper study of mankind in general is the -the study of mankind in general," whereupon an urchin in the audience cried out, "You're a goin' in at the same hole you came out at." Not less embarrassed was the old gentleman who, stumbling through an after-dinner speech, said: “I—I have no more to say, and so and so-I'll make a few more remarks." The builder frankly declared he was "more fitted for the scaffold than the platform." Sometimes the chairman errs in welcoming the speaker. We heard one welcome his as one "who is always with us, and we wish he would come oftener." Then there is the chairman who says all know the lecturer, "and none can doubt his incapacity"; and the chairman who said, "I need not assure you of the capacity of the speaker to lecture on 'Fools'-you have heard him too often." Kind was the announcement that "there will be two more opportunities to hear the lecturer once more." It was when the meeting was ended we heard the chairman ask the audience to "close by singing just one verse of the Doxology."-(A.V.), in (British) Christian Herald.

EFFICIENCY AND ENTERPRISE

A St. Louis University professor, in a lecture before the Academy of Science, told of a printer who could "set type with one eye and read proof with the other." Give us his name, professor, and we'll hire him. Setting type with the eye instead of the hand Louis Post-Dispatch.

is quite a feat.-St.

NOT DEAD BUT SPEECHLESS

Two Irishmen were working at a quarry, and one fell over the edge. The other, alarmed, came to the margin of the hole and called out: "Arrah, Pat, are ye killed entirely? If ye're dead, shpake."

Pat reassured him from the bottom by saying: "No, Tim, I'm not dead, but spachless."-Junior Christian Endeavor World.

EASY ENOUGH?

A young woman who had just deposited some money in the bank for the first time was instructing a friend in the mysteries of the proceedings.

"But," said the other, "after you put the money in the bank, is it so easy to draw it out?"

"Oh, yes," she responded, "you can draw it out the next daybut you are required to give two weeks' notice !"-Selected.

IMPOSSIBLE TO OBEY

The schoolgirl was sitting with her feet stretched far out into the aisle, and was busily chewing gum, when the teacher espied her. "Mary!" called the teacher sharply. "Yes, ma'am?" questioned the pupil. "Take that gum out of your mouth and put your feet in!" was the command, difficult to be obeyed.-Florida TimesUnion.

NOT KNOWN AT CHARLOTTESVILLE

There was an old darky who lived in Louisa and who would frequently get drunk and create a disturbance, but he was such a kind-hearted and accommodating darky when he was sober that the officers overlooked his meanness when he was drunk. On one occasion he went up to Charlottesville to visit, and got drunk and began to raise a row; he was arrested and put in jail, and when he had served his term and was let out, he remarked: "I ain't never gwine to Charlottesville no more; I is gwine home to Louisa, whar a man is 'lowed to fight in peace and quietude."-Selected.

ALSO AWKWARD

The wife of a clergyman warned him as he went off to officiate at a funeral one rainy day: "Now, John, don't stand with your bare head on the damp ground; you'll catch cold.”—Tit-Bits.

CHECKING HER UP WITH THE DICTIONARY

A lady was surprised to hear a woman of apparent cultivation pronounce the word "mural" as though it were spelled mooral. She slipped out and consulted her dictionary, remarking to a friend on her return, "She is wrong. Mu is pronounced mew, as in cat.”— Selected.

AN IRISH BULL

Pat was driving along the street and his old horse fell down and I did not try to get up.

"Git up, git up from there, ye lazy critter," said Pat. "Git up, I tell ye, or I'll drive right over ye!"-National Food Magazine.

ANOTHER IRISH BULL

At a meeting one night an Irishman got up and said: "I propose that we build a new schoolhouse, and that we build it in the place where the old one is; and I propose that we leave the old schoolhouse standing until the new one is up, and that we use the stones of the old schoolhouse to build the new one."-Young Folks.

TWO-LEGGED PHEASANTS

Mistress: "Well, Jones, I hope we shall get more out of the garden this year. We had next to nothing last year."

Jones: "Ay, 'twere they plaguy pheasants 'ad most on it last year."

Mistress: "If you ask me, I should say it was two-legged pheasants!"-Punch.

WAS CURED OF INSOMNIA

"They tell me you have cured yourself of chronic insomnia." "Yes, I am entirely and completely cured."

"My! But it must be a wonderful relief."

"Relief! Well, I should say it is. Why, I lie awake half the night thinking how I used to suffer from it."-Selected.

A CONTRARY YOUNGSTER

Mrs. O'Flanagan—“Come here, ye obstinate young Irish raskil, an' put yer hat on! Shure, if ye hadn't got one ye'd always be

wearin' it, ye're that contrairy !”—Selected.

THE GLAD HAND FOR JOHNNY

"When Johnny comes marching home," says the Dallas News, "meet him with a kiss in one hand and a pie in the other."Selected.

A RATHER AWKWARD PERFORMANCE

Addressing a political gathering, a speaker gave his hearers a touch of the pathetic. "I miss," he said, brushing away a not unmanly tear, “I miss many of the old faces I used to shake hands with."-Selected.

"See that man?

feet, and now he's

"My word! He

A REGULAR CENTIPEDE

Well, sir, he landed in this country with bare got millions.”

must be a regular centipede."-Selected.

WHY SHE LIKED IBSEN

Two women were leaving the theater after a performance of "A Doll's House."

"Oh, don't you just love Ibsen?" cried one ecstatically. "Doesn't he just take all the hope out of life?"-Everybody's Magazine.

THREE HALVES

"Timothy came last, looking half scared, half sheepish, and half amused."-Young's Magazine. Timothy must have been a big chap, at least.-New York Tribune.

A DOCTOR'S BILL

An Irish doctor sent this bill to a lady: "To curing your husband till he died, twenty-five pounds."-Selected.

DISBELIEVED IN PHRENOLOGY

She "Do you believe in phrenology?"

He "No. As an experiment I once went and had my head read, and I found there was nothing in it."-Boston Transcript.

BUNGLING

HE WAS AN APT PUPIL

Old Clerk-"Just watch me wait on this lady, and you'll get an idea how it is done. 'Is there anything I can do for you to-day, madam?" "

Lady-"Have you any canned peas?"

Old Clerk-"Certainly, madam (taking down a can), and they have the flavor and freshness of the pea from the vine." Lady-"I will take three cans."

Old Clerk-"You see how it's done; now here comes a lady and I'll let you wait on her."

Lady-"Have you any pickled pigs' feet?"

New Clerk-"Certainly, madam (taking down a can), and they have 'the flavor and freshness' of the pig right from the pen.”— Trade Seeker.

CORRECTING HIS MISTAKE

A street-car inspector was watching the work of the new conductor. "Here, Foley," he said, "how is this," he said, "how is this? You have ten passengers, and only nine fares have been rung up." "Is that so?" asked Foley. Then, turning to his passengers, he yelled: "There's wan too many on this car. Git out, one of yez."-Youth's World.

A VERY POLITE NOTE

A Girton undergraduate, having inadvertently changed umbrellas with a fellow-student, is said to have evolved this note: "Miss presents her compliments to Miss —, and begs to say that she has an umbrella which isn't mine, so if you have one that isn't hers, no doubt they are the ones."-Selected.

PRESSED THE WRONG WAY

The Commander-"Well, if that imbecile Gadgett hasn't pressed my trousers 'thwart-ships' instead of fore 'n' aft!"-London Opinion.