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POINTED PARAGRAPHS.
A DOCTOR AS IS DOCTOR.
A country physician was called upon
! to visit a young man afflicted with apo
-1 plexy. M. D. Bolus gazed long and hard,
felt his pulse and pocket, looked at his
tongue and his wife, and finally gave vent
to the following sublime opinion :
“1 think he’s a gone feller.”
“No, no!” exclaimed the sorrowing
, wife, “do not say that.”
i “Yes,” returned Bolus, lifting up his
i hat and eyes heavenward at the same
time, “Yes, 1 do say so; there arn’t no
hope, not the leastest mite; he’s got an
attack of ni hi I fit in his lost frontis ”
“Where?” cried the startled wife.
“In his lost frontis, and he can’t be cur
ed without some trouble and a great deal
of pains. You see his whole planetbry
i system is deranged ; firstly, his vox pop
i uli is pressing on the ad valorem ; se
condly, his cutacharpial cutaneous has
swelled considerably, if not more ; third
ly, and la tly, his solar ribs are in a con
cussed state, and he arn’t got any money,
and consequently he is bound to die.”
[ Western Lancet.
HARD TOAST TO FINISH.
The celebrated Dr. Brown, of London,
paid his addresses to a lady tor many
I years, but unsuccessfully ; during which
time he was accustomed to propose her
health in company when called on for a
‘toast. But Leing observed one day to
i omit it, a gentleman present reminded
him that he had forgotten to toast his fa
vourite lady. “Why, indeed,” said the
doctor, “1 find it all in vain. Since 1 have
toasted her so many years, and still can
not make her Brown , I am resolved to
! toast her no longer.”
TRILES.
How much are we indebted to acci
dent. Pythagoras owed the invention of
music to the sound of a blacksmith’s
hammer. Newton, his first idea of grav
itation, to the fall of an apple —Voltaire
| tells us that Milton got his first idea of
Paradise Lost from a ridiculous Italian
burlesque, styled Adamo, or the Fall of
i M an —Goldsmith’s comedy, She Stoops
to Conquer, was suggested by an acci
dent which occurred to him on his way
ito college. Verily, as the song says :
“We little know what great things
From little things arise.”
A PUNSTER PAID OFF IN HIS COIN.
Old Thomas Fuller, who was a very
lively writer, but rather addicted to pun
ning, was occasionally repaid his pun,
with interest. He was exceedingly cor
pulent, and as he was with a friend
named Sparrow-hawk, he could not resist
the opportunity of cracking a joke upon
ihitn. “Pray, what is the difference,”
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
said he “between an owl and a Sparrow
hawk ?” “An owl,” replied his friend,
“is fuller in the head, fuller in the body,
and fuller all over.”
Instantaneous crystallization.
All experiments for the production of
crystals are both interesting and beauti
ful; they show that all matter will as
sume, under favourable circumstances, a
definite and regular form or shape. Crys
tallization is a species of vitality belong
ing to, and inherent in, what are gener
ally called earthly substances, perfectly
analogous to the regular form assumed
by plants and animals. A certain crystal
will produce crystals of a like kind, but
not of another; just as the seed of one
plant produces its kind, but no other.
Crystallization is the first link of the
chain that unites man with the “dust of
the earth.” The slower the crystals are
formed, the more beautiful and regular
they appear; but as it is interesting to
see them form quickly, though not of
good shape, we give the following experi
ment, by which a liquid is made to be
come almost solid iu an instant. Take
half a pound of Glauber salts, (sulphate
of soda,) crush it to powder, and pour
upon it half a pint of boiling water; as
soon as the salt is dissolved, pour off (he
clear hot liquor into a warm glass tumb
ler, and set it in an undisturbed place ;
now, as quickly as you can, put a table
spoonful of sweet oil on the surface of
the solution, and let it stand till quite
cold In this state it will remain liquid ;
but if touched with a piece of wood, or
if any thing be dropped into the glass,
the whole will instantaneously crystal
lize. If a bottle be quite filled with the
hot solution, and corked up while hot, it
will remain liquid when it becomes cold ;
but when the cork is drawn, crystals will
be rapidly formed.
a hint.
A young gentleman, a short time since,
was about making an excursion for fi-h,
and on one of the thoroughfares of the
lake met and made the acquaintance of a
lady, Mary Pike , by name, with whom
he became very much pleased, and from
whom he could not part without some
pangs of sadness. He expressed a hope
that he might hear from her occasionally.
To which she replied, that “if he was not
successful iu taking fish at the lakes, she
had not any objection to his dropping a
line to her.”
not afraid.
A western editor, in commenting upon
the statement that diseases may be com
municated by bank notes, remarks very
coolly that his subscribers need not neg
lect to “pay up” on that account, as he is
willing to run his risk of “catching” any
thing in that way. On the other hand,
he fears that if the bank bills are not
forthcoming the sheriff will catch him.
RANDOM READINGS.
—“Has a man,” asked a prisoner of a
magistrate, ‘‘a right to commit a nui
sance ?” “No, sir, not even the mayor.”
“Then, sir, 1 claim my liberty, 1 was ar
rested as a nuisance, and as no one has a
right to commit me, I move for a non
suit.”
—As a canal boat was passing under a
bridge, the captain gave the usual warn
ing by calling aloud “Look out!” when
a little Frenchman, who was in the cabin,
obeyed the order by popping his head
out of the window, when he received a
severe thump by coming in contact with
a pillar of the bridge. He drew it back
in a great pet, and exclaimed: —“Dese
Americans are queer people —dey say
‘Look out’ when they mean ‘Look in !’ ”
—Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a
public lecture, in New-York, a short time
since, said that “a lecture must be con
fined within the hour, whatever be the
subject discussed, or all over that, like
extra baggage on a public conveyance,
must be at the risk of the owner. It must
not be too fine spun, or its effect will be
lost on a promiscuous audience, and, like
the heads in a fresco painting, must be
larger than life to be correctly apprecia
ted.”
—The Pope is about to receive a pre
sent from the hands of an American gen
tleman, who has made a fortune of seve
ral millions of dollars in California, and
is just arrived in Rome for the purpose
of offering to his Holiness a specimen of
the yellow metal, valued at about eighty
thousand dollars.
—As a sailor who had lost an arm
w'as travelling through the country, he
stopped at a house for refreshment; the
curiosity of the landlord was excited to
know in what manner it was lost. •
“I’ll tell you,” said Jack, “if you
won’t ask me any other questions about
it.”
The landlord agreed.
“Well, then,” said Jack, “it was bit
of”
The Yankee wmuld not forfeit his word,
but anxionsly replied :
“Darnation, don’t 1 wish 1 knowed
what bit it off.”
—Madame de Fencm, with the sweet
est manners in the world was an unprin
cipled woman, capable of any thing. On
one occasion, a friend w r as praising her
geutieness. “Ay, ay,” said the Abbe
Imblet, “if she had any object whatever!
in poisoning you, undoubtedly she would
choose the sweetest and the least disa
greeable poison in the world.”
[December 18