A selection of jokes, puns, and riddles from Puniana, 1867.
Pray tell us, apropos of this amusing Crusoe-fiction, what piece of music the Romans, in the time of the early Christians, most enjoyed?
A stab at martyr!
How do young ladies show their dislike to moustaches?
By setting their faces against them!
Where is it that all women are equally beautiful?
A sly friend promptly replies, “Why, in the dark, of course.”
Why are stars like an old barn?
Because there are r, a, t, s, in both.
Why is a watch-dog bigger by night than by day?
Because he is let out at night, and taken in in the morning.
Why is a dog biting his own tail like a good manager?
Because he makes both ends meet!
When ought a man to look most carefully after his “better half?”
When his next-door neighbour, or near neighbour, is “on the look-out for a wife!!”
If a man’s wife run away, when would be an appropriate, we say a most appropriate, occasion to pity him?
When – she comes back again!
When is a blow from a lady welcome?
When she strikes you agreeably!
When you give a lady a lock of your hair, what else does she receive from you at the same time?
Why, a key to your feelings.
Why is a pretty girl like a locomotive engine?
Because she sends off the sparks, transports the mails, has a train following her, and passes over the plain!
What is the difference between an accepted and a rejected lover?
One kisses his missis, the other misses his kisses.
Why is a ship like a woman?
Because she is often tender to a man-of-war; often running after a smack; often attached to a great bouy; and frequently making up to a pier!
Why is a very demure young lady like a steam-packet?
Because she pays no attention to the swells that follow her.
Why is a person afflicted with lumbago like one smoking a penny cigar?
Because his baccy’s bad (His back is bad).
What did the muffin say to the toasting-fork?
You’re too pointed!
What is it we all say we will do, recommend others to do, and yet no one has ever done it?
Stop a minute!
I am for ever, yet was never?
Eternity!
What is the greatest instance on record of the power of the magnet?
A young lady, who drew a gentleman thirteen miles and a half every Sunday of his life!
[What a magnetficent creature she must have been!]
When are babies travelling abroad?
When going to Brest.
Name the most unsociable things in the world.
Milestones; for you never see two of them together.
When should a foreign hotel-keeper visit an English iron-foundry?
When he wants an English bar-maid.
Why does South Afric sherry rhyme with stomach?
Because it’s rum muck.
If I buy four oranges for a penny, and give one of them away, why am I like a telescope?
Because I make a far-thing present.
What is it that every one wishes for, and yet wants to get rid of as soon as it is obtained?
A good appetite.
Why is a broad-sword combat like using a sand-ball?
Because it’s sand to hand.
What celebrated battle was fought in a dirty slum?
The battle of A-gin-court!
What sort of cold is necessary to insure your getting on well at Court?
Influence-sir.
What is the differedce betweed ad orgadist ad the influedza?
Wud dose the stops, the other stops the dose.
What is it gives a cold, cures a cold, and pays the doctor’s bill?
A draft.
[Juvenile reminiscence! As a lady was lying on the sofa once, we, with one of the colours from our paint-box, easily aroused her, that is, with a yell awoke her (with a yellow ochre). She, we are happy to say, did not sofa any inconvenience from it afterwards.]
Why are ladies – whether sleeping on sofas or not – like hinges?
Because they are things to a-door!
What is it that never asks questions, yet requires many answers?
The door-knocker.
What relation is the door-mat to the door-step?
A step-farther.
Why is a door always in the subjunctive mood?
Because it’s always wood (would) – or should be!
Why is a new-born baby like a storm?
Because it begins with a squall!
When is a schoolmaster like a man with one eye?
When he has a vacancy for a pupil!
Why are dogs and cats like schoolmasters and their pupils?
Because one is of the canine (canin’), the other of the feline (feelin’) species.
Why will seeing a schoolboy being thoroughly well switched bring to your lips the same exclamation as seeing a man lifting down half a pig, hanging from a hook?
Because he’s a pork-reacher (poor creature)!
[You know what the schoolmaster said to the boy he was about flogging: – “If it’s wishing won’t make you learn, perhaps it’s swishing will!”]
Apropos of pork hanging, what should a man about to be hung have for breakfast?
A hearty-choke and a hoister!
Why is a a wainscotted room like a reprieve?
Because it saves hanging.
Why is the hangman’s noose like a box with nothing in it?
Because it’s hemp-tie.
The public credit and the public shame,
Though widely different, differ not in name?
The Stocks!
Why is a four-quart jug like a lady’s side-saddle?
Because it holds a gall-on.
How do angry women prove themselves strong-nerved?
They exhibit their “presents of mind” by “giving you a bit of it!”
How is it you can never tell a lady’s real hystericks from her sham ones?
Because, in either case, it’s a feint.
[Hys-t’ricks are her tricks, so a woman can always beat a man with her own weepin’, all through her superior knowledge of feints (fence).]
When may ladies who are enjoying themselves be said to look wretched?
When at the opera, as then they are in tiers.
When is a man like a green gooseberry?
When a woman makes a fool of him.
What kind of book might a man wish his wife to resemble?
An almanack; for then he could have a new one every year.
If you were kissing a young lady, who was very spooney (and a nice ladle-like girl), what would be her opinion of newspapers during the operation?
She wouldn’t want any Spectators, nor Observers, but lots of Times.
[Now, if you had asked us, we should have given it as our opinion that she would have ardently admired the entire Press!]
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