The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-05-08
Are We a Humorous People ?


We have the opinion of an authority
as intelligent as the New York Times
for believing that there is no apprecia-
ton of humor, and less liking for wit,
in America and this opinion is given
us at the moment when the Hon. S. S.
Cox, who is both producer and a
Judge of the staples in question, is
discoursing in Harper's Magazine as to
the richness and abundance of the
very qualities which our realistic critic
refuses to recognize. Which of the
p9ndits is right? Have we wit or
humor. either, neither, or both, in this
country? Are we fun-loving people?
What is wit? What is humor? On
the whole We must think the journalist
to be in the wrong but we shall not,
on that account, remind him that he is
a wretched Briton that he had the
misfortune to come into his existence
outside the circle of inspirations which
rally round the starry banner that, in
one word, he is SO far removed from the
blessing of being a free-born American,
that he cannot tell Joke from hole
in the ground, nor see the jests over
which he sturnbles every day.
The truth is that every nationality
has its tuin for mirth, even the serious
Indian giving out tokens of taste for
grim humor pc culiar to himself, and,
as wit and humor spring from condi-
items. that which may provoke the
mirth of one people may fall fl t and
unlaughable upon the ear of another
people. Especially is this likely to
prove the case if there be difference
OF language; the jokes of the German
find little echo in France; the COM
icality of the Levant would hardly pass
current in Texas. Pope's couplet APP
plies to the estimation of wit main
tanned in different countries:
lis with our judgments as our watches,
name
Go Just aIise; yet each believes his own"
The Londoner. who finds the stupid
est things in punch at least read
able, would go to sleep over Mr.. Lin
coins best "yarns." The Partisan
laughs until he cries at the drolleries
shot off nightly in the cafes of the
Champs Elysees and considers Mr..
Joshua Billings an ass. What would
the sober suited Bedouin think of Mr..
Mark Anthony Twain's lamentation
over the dead body Of Adam, or the
Grand Llama of the Fat Contributor?
We know that Mr.. Artemus Ward
how? In the first place he delivered a
funny lecture about the Mor,nons when
mormonism was an interesting question
in England; and, in the delivery of this,
he gave his audiences a genuine sur
prise by the union which he affected
between a rude and native Yankee
humor and a most gentleman-like
Anghcized drawl, accent and manner.
He carried this dexterous trick into the
half-dozen papers which he contributed
to Punch, and with equal success.
There was thus tie, bond of affinity,
between him and those who heard and
read him, the man himself being in
reality half Briton. Mark contrast
furnished contemporaneously by the
absence of these qualities of comic alli-
ance in the person of Mr.. Arthur
Sketchly,, London humorist, who,
taking his cue from the success of Arte.
mus IN the British metropolis, came to
try his merriment on New York, and
failed most signally, because his jokes
had nothing cosmopolitan about them,
and, worst Of all, because they had
nothing about them common to the
New Yorkers.
MIR. Toole's equivucal experience may
be ascribed to the same cause. He is
best. An offspring of the Dickens school
of art, in which grotesque and exagger-
ated farce Is joined to exquisite pathos,
Mir. Toole may be fairly said to be the
most versatile, as he is the most viva
clous, comedian alive. "Just look
at that Toole, very truly observed the
young Lady of Gloster, "makes one
feel like splitting" and go it is not
only in Gloster, but in Liverpool,
Manchester and Dublin, and all over
the provinces, as well as in London.
Quite another thing in America.
Here MIR. Too1e's srotesquerie passes
for overriding. whilst many of his
neatest points fail for lack both of in
formation and sympathy in his audience.
AIR: Sothern's Dundreary goes down
with us, because our own sham social
organism, even more than English
fiction and caricature, has made us
familiar with the brainless dandy of
fashionable life, and thus an exceeding
broad extravaganza, being understood,
Is applauded. Mr.. Toole, however, in
Broadway has scarcely as good show
as Col. Sellers would have in the
Strand, for, whilst Sellers outre char
acterIstlcs might carry him along in
spite OF bis unmeaning references and
his outlandish jargon, Mr.. Toole has
stu to rely upon his art, pure and
simple.
Thus we see how absurd it is to
measure the wit or humor of one
people by the standards which prevail
with another people. The New York
Times is certainly at fault in this mat
ter. The hunlor of Rabelais is univer-
sal, because 1t springs out of the we'll
OF human nature, whereby it is also
coarse and vulgar and yet Rabelais is
going out of vogue. The humor of
Dickens is kept alive by his plot and
pathos, to which indeed, more than to
his humor, he is indebted for his vogue
outside his native country. Even the
humor of Cervantes, world-embracinp.
Is obsolete; whilst Butler is rarely read
at ALL Indeed, neither wit nor humor
can stand alone for a long time. If
they be not an emanation of their
country and their time, they will only
i've IN a desultory way, handed down in
fragments from age to age, and tam
Pered with as freely as though they were
legends of loose women. Purge the
worlds book of fun of its profanity
and its smut, and how much would be
left of it? The most successful Jokes
are generally the rudest, and for the
reason no. merely that they are forbid
den, which, indeed, is but a poor reason
for their popularity, but that they
contribute the most whimsical incon-
gr1ities and the EXTREMIST contrasts 10
surprise our risibles and compel us to
laugh. Nor is their indecency SO OBJ
Iectionable as it is often represented to
be; for that cannot be said to be wholly
bad which draws men together by the
touch OF nature that makes the whole
world hin, causing them to be merry,
to be generous one with another, to
digest, In short, as the old saying has
1t, to laugh and grow fat" There is
such thing as alternating decency
INTO LEVIED hint; and we are not to
think 1t our duty to make too much ado
about dung heap. The most refined
people are often the least moral, Just
as the severest virtue is come up with
among the plainest folk.
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