the anathemas of a pope-Catholic, Church-of England, or Dissenting : The cardinal rose with a dignified look: He call'd for his candle, his bell, and his book! He solemnly cursed that rascally thief! He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed: He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright: Never was heard such a terrible curse; But what gave rise Nobody seem'd one penny the worse! "SPONTANEOUS GAS" EXTRAORDINARY. MR. BECKETT, of Oswestry, was called in to attend a cow that was said to be dying. The body of the animal was dreadfully swollen, and life was almost extinct. Finding all hope of the animal's recovery past, Mr. Beckett plunged his knife into her stomach, when a stream of gas rushed out with a roaring noise, and caught fire from the candle held by the assistant, and could not, without great difficulty, be put out! The cow rallied, and soon recovered. A PARSON AND HIS PEOPLE. THE Rev. Mr. W., of Bristol county, Massachusetts, wished to address every portion of his flock 1 1 a manner to impress them most deeply, and cordingly gave notice that he would preach parate sermons to the old, to young men, to bung women, and to sinners. At his first seron the house was full, but not one aged person as there. At the second (to young men), every dy in the parish was present, and but few for hom it was intended. At the third, a few young dies attended, but the aisles were crowded with oung men. At the fourth, addressed to sinners, Lot a solitary individual was there, except the sexon and the organist. "So," said the good parson, everybody came to church to hear his neighbour colded, but no one cared to be spoken of himself." A STONE TO PELT WITH. DR. MAGEE affirms, that the Roman Catholics have a church without a religion ;- the Dissenters, a religion without a church ;-the Establishment, both a Church and a religion. "This is false," observes Robert Hall of Leicester; "but it is an excellent stone for a clergyman to pelt with." A SMASHER! A BACHELOR had a fine tortoise, which was allowed to creep about the kitchen. Some time ago he was obliged to change his servant. His new maid-of-all-work was a raw country girl, who had never seen or heard of a tortoise in her life. One day he says to her, -" Margaret, what's become of the tortoise? I have not seen it for some days." But Margaret " didna ken aught about it." -" You had better light a candle, and see if it has not got into the coal-hole. Poor thing! it will be starving for want of meat." A candle was accordingly lighted; and looking over her shoulder, he observed it, as he expected, 'snug among the coals. "Ah! there it is, poor creature," said he: "take it out, and place it near the fire." -" Is that what ye ca' the tortoise?" quoth Margaret, in astonishment; "od, sir, I've been breaking the coals wi't this fortnight!" HOW TO ATTACK A HASTY-PUDDING. COUNT RUMFORD, in his "Philosophical Essays," gives the following solemn directions for demolishing a hasty-pudding :-" The hasty-pudding being spread out equally on a plate while hot, an excavation is made in the middle of it with a spoon; into which excavation a piece of butter, as large as a nutmeg, is put, and upon it a spoonful of brown sugar, &c. The butter, being soon heated by the heat of the pudding, mixes with the sugar, and forms a sauce, which, being confined in the excavation, occupies the middle of the plate! Dip each spoonful in the same before it is carried to the mouth; care being had, on taking it up, to begin on the outside, and near the brim of the plate, and to approach the centre by gradual advances, in order not to demolish too soon the excavation which forms the reservoir of the sauce!" "MADAME DE MONTPENSIER," says Segrais, "used to say that she never told an untruth; but that she made use of her imagination to supply the defect of her memory." ONE of our jokers, the other day, in reading the deaths in a down-east paper, and seeing the ages of many on the list to be eighty and upwards, said he couldn't see how the people afforded to live so long at the north-he wasn't but thirty, and hadn't money enough to hold out much longer. A LADY promised to give her maid £5 as a marriage portion. The girl got married to a man of low stature, and her mistress, on seeing him, was surprised, and said, "Well, Mary, what a very little husband you have got !"-" La, mistress," exclaimed the girl, "What could you expect for five pounds?” DEFINITION OF THE WORD "LIBERAL." GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, in his first number of the Omnibus, just published, says-" I never quarrel with names, but with things; yet, as so many and such opposite interpretations of the terms quoted are afloat, and as some of them are not very intelligible, I wish explicitly to enter my protest against every reading of the word 'liberal' as applicable to me, save that which I find attributed to it in an old and seemingly forgotten dictionary- Becoming a gentleman, generous, not mean.' " A FRIENDLY SUGGESTION. A MAN who had had his ears cuffed in a squabble, without resenting the affront, being shortly afterwards in a party, and in want of a pinch of snuff, exclaimed, "I cannot think what I have done with my box; it is not in either of my pockets.""Try your ears," said a bystander. THE HONEYMOON. The moon, the moon, so silver and cold, Now shady-now bright and sunny- Is the moon_so called of honey! To some a full-grown orb reveal'd In a London fog benighted. To the loving, a bright and constant sphere, With a halo of dream-like splendour. A sphere such as shone from Italian skies, Tipping trees with its argent braveries- For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear, Love, that sweetens sugarless tea, With the coarsest boarding and bedding; |