William Jay Jokes

I came across these three jokes in a letter of William Jay, the long serving Bath preacher

I lately heard of an Irishman who was very ill, and who, when the physician told him he must prescribe an emetic* for him, answered, “Indeed, doctor, an emetic will never do me no good, for I have taken several, and could never keep one of them upon my stomach.”

Walter Scott says, “When in Ireland a poor man did something for me, and having no change, I gave him a shilling instead of a sixpence, saying, Now, Paddy, remember you owe me sixpence.’ ‘God bless your honour,’ said he, ‘and may you live till I pay it.’ ”

“I walked,” says a gentleman, “into one of their fields, and to try him, I said to one of the haymakers, ‘Well, Pat, if the devil was to come and fetch one of us, which would he take first?” ‘O surely,’ said he, ‘myself.’ ‘Why so Pat?‘ Because he ’s sure enough of your honour at any time.’ ”

* A medicine that causes vomiting