The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-03-31
AMERICAN WIT.

The London Saturday rRsvisw has had
in its possession some, of the miserable
American jest books which have been re-.
Gently produced, and which ascribe all the
"little stories I" to the President THIS
leads the Reuiew to q discussion of IS Ans
erican wit, !" from, which We quote few
paragraphs. It says: ,.a-..e. -. -.
Whatever else the Americans have not, they
do possess thoroughly peculiar national wit.
The word "humor" is not exactly applicable
but it has the dry fame of real wit. Ofcourse,
much of it is based on exaggeration; but to
exaggerate truly-that is, to exaggerate not
wildly, as mere liar does, but in the direct
line of the fact on the basis as it were, of what
is-requires imagination. One of the best
Yankee exaggerations had the "honor," 50 to
speak, of figuring in one of Mr.. Lincolns State
papers, If indeed the joke was not the more re-
pectable of the two. The President spoke of
the Mississippi gunboats of draught so light
that they "could float wherever the ground
was . little damp" ...-.... ..-.
That the continual current of American
jokes has not been stopped during the war is
natural enough. The NOrtherners have never
loved the war for itself, and have never gone
of martial deeds. They accept it resolutely
enough as means of saving the Union, but
they do not glory in it as we have gloried in
the battles Of the Peninsula or In the Crimean
war. Hence their readiness to make Jokes on
what one would naturally regard as too serious
subject tor pleasantly. We never treated
fathers ever laugh at the great colonial revolt
bat then we have not Yankee esprit, nor the
recklessness which is its root. One advantage
which the Americans now have In national
joking Is the possession Of q President who is
not only the First Magistrate, but the Chief
Joker of the land. Many collections of Amer
Lincoln's latest jokes, and some of his stories
are certainly good.
After quoting sample story of the
President, the Reuiew descants upon its
familiarity with subject generally re-
garded as not the subject Of jest, and
observes: .''.,'fE
But this story-one of many such-indicates
what all readers must have observed, that the
To call Niagara "a water privilege" to speak
lightly of the most serious events-to treat al
ligators, lightning, big rivers, trackless noun
tains as mere material for TESTS natural
enough, for in real life all these things have
been actually faced by the lanky lean.visaged
pioneers who have given out their dry daring
jokes with smileless lips amid swamp fever,
Americans of the North have startling readi.
ness to treat with jesting familiarity even the
most sacred themes. That their professed wits
should do 80 is, of course, not strange, for re-
ligious subjects have again and again provoked
the irreverence of professional jokers. But
American oratory, literature. and conversation
are full of familiar and jocose illusions to mat
tiers that other men habitually treat with gray
ity, and that the Americans themselves, sin.
cerey respect.
This habit of TESTING the Reuie,U traces
to " Puritanisn, and thus shows the con-
nection: ....=
dominant idea OF the North. To the founders
of New England the historical characters of
the Old Testament were not literary shadows,
but given to them as exemplars. God was to
them "present Deity; ;" especial Provi-
dence" was ever at their side; peculiar mer-
cies were showered in their path. This
stamped their life, their literature, their acts,
their words, with religion actual, vivid, solid
full of fact. They spoke of Jehovah and
Christ, of heaven and hell, of death and the
judgment, as they would of the serious famil-
lar facts of daily life-as they spoke of their
long barn, or their fifteen-acre field, or their
new clearing. The Devil was as real as the
Indian, and was spoken of much in the same
way, as real living enemy, haunting New
England, to be met, and if possible, overcome
Puritanism in its day, in our own country, was
much the same thing in its literature We find
illusions which even Mr.. Spurgeon would
think coarse, and passages which perhaps the
Record would hesitate to print. HaaI
The American irreverence that translates the
Bible into newspaper jokes is therefore de-
scended, on one SIDE from the fearless Puritan
handling of religious names, thoughts, and
facts but on the other side, it is derived from
the audacious, wildcat Yankee spirit evoked
by New World facts. Men who have had to
encounter the hardships and perils of lakewood
life must, above all things, have courage; and
the courage that habitually faces danger, dis
comfort, rough life, gougiHg, bowie-knives,
and free fights, soon becomes recklessness.
Take your Puritan, with his constant dragging
in of religious words and ideas into daily life
keep him for years far from "the means of
grace" as prayer meetings are called; give
him, instead of imaginary wrestlings with
Satan, some tough fights with grizzly bears
show him chances of cheating Red Indians, of
larrupping niggers, of striking trade" with
q Yankee less keen than himself; and you
have, as the result, an odd mongrel-one third
Fifth monarchy, one-third Red Indian, one.
third Joe Miller, with the bible twang ("
grave, lantern-jawed, and lean, like the abort
gines with the old English love of humor,
but humor dried, cut into slips, and preserved
-English beef 'jerked, with q peculiar favor
of its own. s.... ...