HUMOURS OF THE COUNTRY.f.
HERE we have a collection of the facetiae which have appeared from time to time in Farm. and Home. Many readers, we are told,, requested that they should be reprinted. The request was reasonable enough; there are good things sufficient to justify it.. But it is inevitable that what pleases in detail may be somewhat wearisome en masse. The jokes and anecdotes are arranged in sections, according to subject. These sections are thirty-five in number. " Law" is perhaps the best among them. "At what distance," asked Sir Frank Lockwood of a witness, " can you be certain it is a beast you are looking at F"—" Oh ! about as far as you are from me." "How did you steal the ducks, Ephraim, when they were roosting under the owner's window, and there were two dogs in the yard F"—" It wouldn't do you a • Twenty jive Years of Soldiering in South. Africa. By A Colonial Officer. London : Andrew Melrose. 114e. net.] t humours of the COttitt716 Chosen. by B. U.S. London ; John Murray. 2a. ed. net.] bit of good, jedge, for me to 'splain how I cotched 'em," answered Eph. " De bee' way for you to do, jedge, is for yer to buy yer chickens in de market." " Make your bill as light as possible," said a baker client to his lawyer.—" Ah ! you might say that to the foreman of your bakery, but that is not the way I bake my bread." Of another legal story which comes under the head of " Shooting " we would remark that it would have been better if " R. U. S." had consulted a biographical dictionary and changed the names. Sir Alexander Cockburn is supposed to be pleading before Lord Westbury when Chancellor. But Cockburn was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1856, and Lord Westbury became Lord Chancellor in 1861. There is a good story of Lord Onslow, whose name was given to a bull of famous breed. He accepted the invitation of a famous stock- breeder, who telegraphed to his bailiff : "I am bringing the Earl of Onslow." The man appeared with the hospitable pre- paration of a stick and a ring. "' It'll cost you 7s. 6d. for a licence for that dog,' said the collector to Mrs. Moggs. Why that's all my old man had to pay for the licence to marry me l' Mr. Moggs (from within): Yes, but that animal's worth having."
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