Page:Everybody's Book of English wit and humour (1880).djvu/74

 worship recommended the offender to the jury, on account of his good character. After some deliberation, the foreman got up and thus addressed the mayor: "May it please your worshipful, we find the prisoner guilty, but, in countenance of your worship's exceptionable good character, we acquit him."

A little five-year-old, after shopping with her mother at leading drapery shops, remarked, "Seems to me there are a good many boys named 'Cash.'"

"Were you never in a court of justice before?" asked a judge of a witness who was conducting himself in a very unseemly manner.

"No, never," replied the man; "but I've often been before the magistrates."

Tom—"My father's so tall he can look over the garden wall."

Jack—"So can my father, with his hat on."

Dryden's translation of Virgil being commended by a right reverend bishop in the presence of a very witty earl—"The translation is, indeed, excellent," said his lordship, "but everything suffers by a translation—except a bishop."

A Quaker married a woman of the Church of England. After the ceremony, the vicar asked for his fees, which, he said, were a crown. The Quaker, astonished at the demand, said if he would show him any text in the Scripture which proved his fees were a crown, he would give it unto him; upon which the vicar directly turned to Proverbs xii. verse 4, where it is said, "A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband."

"Thou art right," replied the Quaker, "in thy assertion; Soloman was a wise man. Here are the five twelvepenny pieces, and something beside to buy a pair of gloves."

Mrs B desired Dr Johnson to give his opinion of a new work she had just written; adding, that if it would not do, she