Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1876-01-19
Laugh and Grow Fat.

are stuffed with sawdust, and that Jack
the Giant Killer and Mother Goose.
are humbugs." but we in this age are
all the while growing up aud finding
that more things than our story books
are humbugs. Our old ideas and be-
hefs are being turned inside-out and
up-side-down, and everything is in
gcueral hurly-burly. Any presuning
Rip Van Winkle that dared go to sleep
nowadays, would have a worse time
when he awokes collecting his senses
than did Irving's Rip. Those Of us
who are still considered in our prime
find that the children of this genera
tion are taught entirely different than
We were in our school days. Theories
that in those times required many
sleepless nights and aching heads to
master are utterly denied now. IT'S
probably well for US that we did not
know they were no; as unchangahle az
the-hills we were going to say, but
alas! even they, our old synonym for
everything substantial and unchang-
able, are subject to the one great law.
Most OF us were taught that Columbus
discovered America in 1892, and have
felt many symphathetic pangs for the
old navigator, dead and gone, though
he is these many centuries, that the
country he dreamed of long before
he saw it, could not nave borne his
name, and perhaps have regarded Am
erigo Vespucci, as an interloper and
uSurper; but We find it was all wasted
sympathy so far as Columbus was con-
cerned, and we fear to transfer it back
to the old Norsemen, lest We be called
upon in the course of a few years to
90 still farther back, almost beyond the
stretch Of Imagination and quite be-
yond the reach of sympathy. There
was time when We fingered long over
tales of the Indian Braves and thought
the red man the personifcation of all
that is grand and noble, but maturer
years bring the sad conclusion that it
was an hallacination; that the In
dian is, and was, much like every other
savage. The new theories that are
being advanced in regard to the age Of
the earth, the cause OF the tides, the
origin and age of man, the formation
of mountains, aud all religious and
scientific subjects are enough to craze
the calmest brain.
Even the old maxims which have
been handed down for stand-bys, from
generation to generation are gradually
going, this one being ridiculed, and
that one ccn:radicted, until We fee
that the last prop is taken from under
US. We all believed that laughing
was cure for many Ills, and the maxim
"augh and grow fat" has become house
hold words; but now comes forward al
Englisbman Ono other country could
have produced him) with scientific
work, entitled "The Philosophy Of
Laughing" and declares that laughing
is injurious, mentally and physically
and not only that, but is degrading
He saws it is not natural for man tc
laugh, and declares that if mothers
did not tickle or frighten their children
they would never learn the injurious
practice. He says it is only when nations
have made decided progress in civiliza-
ton and consequently in dissipation,
vice and crime, that they laugh, and he
quotes many savage and partially civil
lized nations as proof Of his assertions.
The inevitable consequences neces-
sarily following the acceptance and
practice, of the theories Of this book
are we'll drawn by writer in the Gin.
cinnatti Commercial, and are as fol-
lows:
We should forthwith suppress all
comic journals, ali comic stories, all
theatrical comedies. We should close
up all comic theaters, and compel
comic actors to earn their living In
some other fashion, or else to accept
legal penalties prescribed for vaerancy
We should abolish the circus and the
clown. Jack the Giant Killer, Hop-o'
my-Thumb, Goody Two-shoes, the OLD
Woman who Lived in Shoe, and al
similar creations should be banished
from the nursery. The works Of Field
c...n~xk oc CT.