The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1872-12-21
DONAIDsONvII.LE LA, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 81, 1872

course, and differed in every way from
that of his American companion, who
remarked that be had seen an oyster
so large that it ntook three men to
swallow it whole.n Equally American
was the remark Of the North Caroli-
nian, who, in speaking of the extreme
leanness Of his neighbor's hogs, said
that "he had to put overcoats on them
to enable them to make shadow in
the sun" 1T must have been this North
Carolinian's brother who said an ac-
quaintance was $50 tall that he never
found out when his feet were cold till
they had got warm again.
Nobody but an American could have
called Shakespeare "a boss poet" as
Artemus Ward did.
But the most peculiarly American
form of humor yet developed is that
which has lately become so popular
among editorial paragraph writer's in
our Western States. It is undescriba-
BILE, and we can indicate what it is only
by giving one or two examples:
"Mrs. Gwin, of Davenport, assisted
the kitchen fire, one day last week,
with the kerosene-can. The heavy
rain kept e good many people from
attending the funeral"
GA Chicago man ate ten dozen
eggs on a wager last week. The
money he won has been paid to his
widow"
"A man out in Kansas said he could
drink quart Of Cincinnati whisky,
and he did it. The silver mounting OH
his coffin cost $685.
We can not fail to discover at once
the parentage of anything Of this sort.
It is too evidently indigenous to be
mistaken for an exotic.
The tests of other nations are equal
" well marked. Your French bon-1not
has an unnlistakable shrug of the
shoulders about it. German wit Is
elaborate and minutely accurate in
all it's details. A Scotch joke must Of
necessity be gimlet-pointed, else it
could never be driven home i'll the
heads of Scotchmen.
Wecan not only discover the nation
ality of jest from internal evidences,
but we can often tell the exact region
whence it came, and sometimes even
its very authorship is apparent. When
we hear man say that he wrestles
his hash" at such place, we know
very we'll that that man was "raised"
west of the AlleglaDies. The man
who asks you "what you've got on
your wheel-honse," when he wants to
know what you propose to do, has no
need to tell anybody that he has lived
on the banks of the Mississippi river.
And it could only have been college
student, and sophomore at that, who
when asked what stars never set, re-
piled, 'roostars."
There are some jests as we have
already remarked, whose very author
ship is apparent; notably some Of
Hoods and nearly all of Charles
Lambs. SAKE has closely initiated
his masters in the matter Of puns,
but lie has never shown himself equal
to such play on words as that which
Hood puts into the mouth of the ven
der of ear-trumpets, who, in vaunting
his wares, says:
s'There was Mrs. F.,
So very deaf
That she might have worn percussion cap,
And been knocked on the head without hear
ing it snap. 81.
We'll. / sold her q horn, and the very next
day ;.
She Heard from, he, husband at Botany Bay" !"
Charles Lamb was never like any
body else, and certainly nobody else
was ever like Charles Lamb. It was
he of course (who else could it have
been y, who replied to the complaint
of his superior in the India House,
that he came to his desk later in the
morning than any other of the writers,
by saying, " Yes; but you see | make
it up by going a,cay earlier in the eve
ming" His good things were always
SO essentially and wholly his own,
| that there is no possibility Of mistak
ing their origin. No other man could
have thought his thoughts or any
thing like them. Nobody else would
ever have thought Of plying our fore
fathers, who lived before the times of
candlelight, because whenever they
cracked u joke after dark, they had to
| feel about for smile, and handle their
| neighbors' cheeks to be sure they un-
derstood it!-Hearth and Home.