New York Dispatch

SHE DIDN'T LIKE IT.
SHE HAD NO HEAD FOR STATISTICS

A young English statistician who was paying court to a young lady thought to surprise her with his immense erudition. Producing his note book, she thought he was about to indite a love sonnet, but was slightly taken aback by the following question:

"How many meals do you eat?"

"Why, three, of course; but of all the oddest questions!"

"Never mind, dear, I'll tell you all about it in a moment."

His pencil was rapidly at work. At last, fondly clasping her slender waist:

"Now, my darling, I've got it, and if you wish to know how much has passed through that adorable little mouth in the last seventeen years, I can tell you the exact figures."

"Goodness! Gracious! What can you mean!"

"Now, just listen," says he, "and you will hear exactly what you have been obliged to absorb to maintain those charms which are to make the happiness of my life."

"But I don't want to hear."

"Ah, you are surprised, no doubt, but statistics are wonderful things. Just listen: You are seventeen years old, so that in fifteen years you have absorbed oxen or calves, 5; sheep and lambs, 14; chickens, 327; ducks, 20; geese, 12; turkeys, 100; game of various kinds, 82; fishes, 160; eggs, 3,124; vegetables (bunches), 700; fruit (baskets), 603; cheese, 102; bread, cake, etc., (in sacks of flour), 40; wine (barrels), 11; water (gallons), 3,000."

At this the maiden revolted, and jumping up exclaimed:

"I think you are very impertinent, and disgusting beside, and I will not stay to listen to you." Upon which she flew into the house.

He gazed after her with an abstracted air, and left, saying to himself:

"If she kept talking at that rate twelve hours out of twenty-four, her jaws would in twenty years travel a distance of 1,332,124 miles."

The maiden, within two months, married a well-to-do grocer who was no statistician.