Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-09-18
Seleeted MiseeIlanu.
PRACTICAL JOKES.

ALTHOUGH we are ali grown so practical,
and study how to become more practical
with daily increasing success, yet practical
Joking is at discount. Practical jokes
are often vulgar, witless, stupid, ill-natured;
and it is really impossible to deny that the
popular verdict is a correct one: But how
amusing they often are! And, after all, is
not that the great thing? Man, look you,
is the only animal (the hyena excepted)
that can laugh, and is not this laughter as
valuable a boon as either of his other
characteristics? A fine use he often makes
of his reason The gift of speech is an
edged tool which frequently cuts himself,
and is always doing mischief; but who
ever failed to receive benefit, both bodily
and mentally, from hearty laugh? 1t as
sists the digestion, clears the brain, and
softens the heart.
Now, think l receive as much pleasure
as any one from witty repartee or hu-
morous description; but-(Hd you ever see
any one trying to get into an apple-pie
school on holidays to prevent the boys
and on fine summer days, when the mas
ter read the names over in the playing
fields, ID was common trick for one of us
to creep on his hands and knees behind a
boy whose turn was coming, while another
gave him a slight push on the chest at the
critical moment To see a lad hold up his
hat, and shout Here, sir |" and simultan-
eously take back-somersault, was really
very comical.
You must, in your youth, have either set
or fallen into "booby trap" 1t consist
ed, you may remember, of books, boots,
&c, balanced on the top of door, which
was left ajar so that the first incomer got a
solid shower bath.
Another trick was to pour water into a
stone ink bottle, cork it tightly, and slip 1t
between the bars of boys crate on a
winters evening, when he was returning
to his room after temporary ABSENCE
the nozzle, of course, directed towards his
chair. The tenant returned, and sat down
to his verses or translation presently the
water began to boil, and the steam fired off
the cork at him.
The fun of practical joke consists in
the surprise of the victim, and this was
certainly attained by gently turning up a
cupboard-bed with its inmate. The aston
ishment of sound sleeper on finding him
self standing on his head in cupboard,
is very great indeed, but it is mercy that
no boy was ever stifled.
~ Children, indeed, are probably as much
given to practical joking now as ever they
were; it is to be hoped SO, for only in ex-
ceptional cases do boys understand any
iother kind of jest; and q human being
without fun is in morbid, unhealthy con-
dition.
The same remarks apply to those classes
of the community who have received
least intellectual education. 1t is shallow
to cry out against their horse-p play; horse
! play is ten thousand times better than no
play at all. The newspapers are always
very harsh when treating of the little &C.
ceAtricities of army men; and whether
this pressure of public opinion has cowed
them, or competitive examinations have
sobered them, or an undue proportion of
Indian service has made them languid, or
Aldershott has bored them into listless-
ness, it is the fact that even in crack cav
airy regiments there is very little practi
cal Joking now.
Certainly they used to carry the thing
too far; there seems to an outsider but
little humor in cutting off the tail of a
mans charger, or smashing his barrack
furniture.
An acquaintance of mine with some
what saturnine disposition, who entered
the army late, met the ordeal to which
newly Joined ensigns in his regiment were
, customarily put in very dangerous man
ner. Having been warned that his bar
rack room would probably be invaded in
the middle of the night, and all his clothes
and chattels subjected to hay-making
process, he barricadeo his door, and when
his brother officers began to burst it in, he
sent a pistol bullet through the panel
about half foot over their heads. They
let him alone after that.
Perhaps the decline of practical joking
both in the army and amongst civilians is
due in a great measure to the abolition OF
duelling. 1t seems mean to play tricks
upon man who has no redress in case he
should take serious offense; and this un-
doubtedly is the weak part of the practice,
that it necessitates victim. This is the
! case, indeed, with the majority of our
amusements: one cannot win game with
out another losing it; fox-hunting is un-
/ pleasant for the fox and shooting entails
pain and death upon the objects of our
SPORT neither does anybody, however
good face he may put upon the matter,
like to be made game of But in the last
instance there is an element of treachery
which distinguishes it from the others; to