Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1872-12-27
The Ear-NIarlSs of wit.

WnlCu pears lne marx OF lis uutiNit9 e'
enthusiastically as wit aud humor do.
The speeches of Burke might have been
delivered by Webster the poetry of
Wadsworth and Southey might have been
written by Americans there is nothing
about the German philosophy which is
so essentially German that it might n OF
have been English; aud there are some
French dramatsts who could almost
have initiated Shakespeare himself. But
il is not so with wit and humor. Given
a lest, and it needs but little discern
ment to tell whence it came. Sheridan's
much-quoted remark concerning Dun
das. that he "resorts to his memory for
his wit and to his imagination for his
facts" could not possibly have been
made by any but an Englishman, or
even by an Englishman of any other
than Sheridan's time.
Douglas Jerold's witticism, 1t is bet
ter to be witty and wise than witty and
otherwise" was not only very English,
but very Jerroldy, and few people would
need to be told who said it.
And so it is with the humor of other
peoples. Who would hesitate for a mo-
ment to credit Irelan the man who,
Wanting the glories of the past, wanted
to know "where you will find modern
building which has lasted as long as the
ancient ones ?" Equally evident is Sir
Richard Steele's nativity, from his cell
ebrated effort to extend hospitality to n
friend to whom he said, If you should
ever come within mile of my house,
hope you will stop there" And ere
can be no question that it was an Irish
editor who announced that prominent
gentleman of the country had "died
very suddenly after lingering illness.
| Perhaps the most strangely marked
humor, however, is shat of our own
country. 1t is of broad guage sort-a
kind of high pleasure afair-too much
like US to belong to anybody else. Thack
eray's joke about the size of our oysters,
was purely English, of course, and differ
ed every way from that of bis compan-
ion, who remarked that he had seen an
oyster so large that it took three men
to swallow it whole Equally Ameri-
can was the remark of the North Caro-.
linian. who, in speaking of the extreme
leanness of his neighbor's hogs, said that
she had to put overcoats on them to en-,
able them to make shadow in the sun. y
1t must have been this North Carolini.
ans brother who said that an acquaint.
ance was so 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 Ar
temus Ward did.
But the most peculiarly American
form of humor is that which has lately
become so popular among editorial par
agraph writers in our Western States
1t is indiscribable, and we can indicate
what it is only by giving one or two ex
amples:
Mrs. Gwin of Davenport, assisted
the kitchen fire, one day last week, witt
/ 81 Iha 10
good many people from attending tht
funeral"
"a Chicago man ate ten dozen egg
on wager last week. The money b,
won was paid to his widow"
"a man out in Kansas said he coult
drink quart of Cincinnati whiskey, anc
he did it. "The silver mounting on hi
coffin cost s13.75."
We cannot fail to discover at once th,
parentage of anything of this sort. ]
is too evidently Indigenous to be mis-
taken for an exotic.
The jest of other nations are equal,
we'll marked. Your French b6R-mot ha
an unmisiakable shrug of the shoulder
about it. German wit is elaborate an,
minutely accurate in all its details. a
. Scotch joke must of necessity be gimlet
pointed, else it could never be driver
home in the heads of Scotchmen.
We cannot only discover the national
f ity of jest from internal evidences, bu
we can often tell the exact region whenc,
it came, and sometimes even its very au
thorship is apparent. When we hear .
man say that he wrestles his hash a
such place, we know very we'll tha
man was raised " west Of the Aleghan
: les. The man who asks you "wha
you've got on your wheel-house," whel
he wants to know what you propose t,
do, has no need to tell anybody that h'
has lived on the banks of the Mississippi
river And it could only have been /.
college student, and sophomore at tha
. when asked what stars never set, replied
I" roostars."
l There are some jests as we have al
; ready remarked. whose very authorship