PENRITH HERALD and EAST CUMBERLAND and WESTMORLAND NEWS. NO. 438-Sixth Week in Quarter Registered for Transmission Abroad. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1874. PRICE 1D. FACTS AND FACETIAE continued AN EPISTOLARY GEM. - The following, we are assured, is a verbatim copy of a letter recently received by a schoolmaster in the North from a householder in his locality. Cur ass, you are a man of no legs, and I wish to inter my sun in your skull. The obscurity and seeming offensiveness of this address disappear on translation. What was intended to be written was, "Sir, as you are a man of knowledge, I wish to enter my son at your school. ___________________________________________________________________ FOR a short time after the Disruption, an unkindly feeling existed between the ministers of the Established Church and their protesting brethren. Several Free Church parishioners of Blackford, Perthshire, waited on MR. CLARK, the Established minister, and preferred the request that they might have the services of a non-Erastian sexton. "Will you allow us, sir," said one of the deputation, "to dig our own graves." "Certainly gentlemen," said MR. CLARK, "you are most welcome; and the sooner the better." ____________________________________________________________________ ONE of the humouristic papers of Paris relates the following: "Monsieur X....... was comfortably sleeping and snoring in an orchestra stall at a theatre, which it is needless to name. The occupant of the adjoining seat, losing all patience, proceeded to awaken him. ' Since when ' asked X......., rubbing his eyes, ' is it forbidden to sleep at M.....'s pieces? ' ' But you make too much noise. ' ' I prevent you perhaps from hearing the play?' ' On the contrary, you hinder me from sleeping, and force me to hear it; that is what I complain of. ' " ___________________________________________________________________ THREE EPITAPHS. "J.P.P. Provost of Dundee. Hallelujah Hallelujee." _______________________ The following is from Kincardineshire: "Wha is't lies here?" "Piper Jock. You needna' speer" "O lad, is that you? " "Aye, but I'm deid noo." "Rise, Jock, and gie's a tune." "Ah ! man, I canna win." ______________________ The following was copied from a tombstone in the "East Neuk o'Fife," - Crail, I think: "Here lies my guid and gracious Auntie, Wham death has packed in his portmanty; Three score and ten years God did gift her, And here she lies, wha deil daurs lift her." _____________________ LORD NORBURY had frequently observed a low prisoner's attorney touting in the dock for business amongst the prisoners, and was determined to punish him. So, on one occasion, as the attorney was climbing over the rails of the dock, after conferring with the prisoners, his lordship, pretending to mistake him for a prisoner, called out to the gaoler, "Gaoler, put that man back - one of your prisoners is escaping." Whereupon the gaoler thrust the lawyer back into the dock; but, having worked his way to the front of the dock; he addressed the judge, when the following conversation took place between them: "My lord, there is a mistake. I am an attorney." LORD NORBURY: "I am very sorry, sir, indeed, to see a gentleman of your respectable position in the dock as a prisoner." ATTORNEY: "But, my lord, I have not committed any crime." LORD NORBURY: "Oh sir, I have nothing to say to that - that must be decided by a jury of your countrymen." ATTORNEY: "But, my lord, there is no indictment against me." LORD NORBURY: "Then, sir, you will be discharged by public proclamation at the end of the assizes." (To the gaoler): "Gaoler, put back that prisoner." Whereupon the officer thrust back the limb of the law, and kept him until the rising of the court, when his lordship sent to the a gaoler a message instructing him to let him out. __________________________________ "HOW will you have your hair cut," asked a garrulous barber of a victim. "In silence, if possible", was the reply. ***********************************************************************************************