Toaster's Handbook Part 67

_See also_ Courts; Witnesses.

EXAMINATIONS

An instructor in a church school where much attention was paid to sacred history, dwelt particularly on the phrase "And Enoch was not, for G.o.d took him." So many times was this repeated in connection with the death of Enoch that he thought even the dullest pupil would answer correctly when asked in examination: State in the exact language of the Bible what is said of Enoch's death.

But this was the answer he got:

"Enoch was not what G.o.d took him for."

A member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin tells of some amusing replies made by a pupil undergoing an examination in English.

The candidate had been instructed to write out examples of the indicative, the subjunctive, the potential and the exclamatory moods.

His efforts resulted as follows:

"I am endeavoring to pa.s.s an English examination. If I answer twenty questions I shall pa.s.s. If I answer twelve questions I may pa.s.s. G.o.d help me!"

The following selection of mistakes in examinations may convince almost any one that there are some peaks of ignorance which he has yet to climb:

Magna Charta said that the King had no right to bring soldiers into a lady's house and tell her to mind them.

Panama is a town of Colombo, where they are trying to make an isthmus.

The three highest mountains in Scotland are Ben Nevis, Ben Lomond and Ben Jonson.

Wolsey saved his life by dying on the way from York to London.

Bigamy is when a man tries to serve two masters.

"Those melodious bursts that fill the s.p.a.cious days of great Elizabeth"

refers to the songs that Queen Elizabeth used to write in her spare time.

Tennyson wrote a poem called Grave's Energy.

The Rump Parliament consisted entirely of Cromwell's stalact.i.tes.

The plural of spouse is spice.

Queen Elizabeth rode a white horse from Kenilworth through Coventry with nothing on, and Raleigh offered her his cloak.

The law allowing only one wife is called monotony.

When England was placed under an Interdict the Pope stopped all births, marriages and deaths for a year.

The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

The G.o.ds of the Indians are chiefly Mahommed and Buddha, and in their spare time they do lots of carving.

Every one needs a holiday from one year's end to another.

The Seven Great Powers of Europe are gravity, electricity, steam, gas, fly-wheels, and motors, and Mr. Lloyd George.

The hydra was married to Henry VIII. When he cut off her head another sprung up.

Liberty of conscience means doing wrong and not worrying about it afterward.

The Habeas Corpus act was that no one need stay in prison longer than he liked.

Becket put on a camel-air s.h.i.+rt and his life at once became dangerous.

The two races living in the north of Europe are Esquimaux and Archangels.

Skeleton is what you have left when you take a man's insides out and his outsides off.

Ellipsis is when you forget to kiss.

A bishop without a diocese is called a suffragette.

Artificial perspiration is the way to make a person alive when they are only just dead.

A night watchman is a man employed to sleep in the open air.

The tides are caused by the sun drawing the water out and the moon drawing it in again.

The liver is an infernal organ of the body.

A circle is a line which meets its other end without ending.

Triangles are of three kinds, the equilateral or three-sided, the quadrilateral or four-sided, and the multilateral or polyglot.

General Braddock was killed in the Revolutionary War. He had three horses shot under him and a fourth went through his clothes.

A b.u.t.tress is the wife of a butler.

The young Pretender was so called because it was pretended that he was born in a frying-pan.

A verb is a word which is used in order to make an exertion.

A Pa.s.sive Verb is when the subject is the sufferer, e.g., I am loved.

Lord Raleigh was the first man to see the invisible Armada.

A schoolmaster is called a pedigree.

The South of the U. S. A. grows oranges, figs, melons and a great quant.i.ty of preserved fruits, especially tinned meats.