Morning journal and courier., 1881-02-15
Eli Perkins.
His Lecture Last Night at the Carl1

His Lecture Last Night st the Carl1 |
 Opera House.
 Eli Perkins, the widely known humorist, lectured at the Carll Opera House last night to goodsized audience. His subject was seThe Philosophy of Fun" The first part of the lecture was semi-serious disquisition on wit and humor, and what produces laugh ter Thaa speaker commenced by saying There are two kinds of wit iand. humor- sensual and intellectual Sensual wit and hu- nor, as they are sensed through the sensual organs, or organs of sense, can be enjoyed by all alike, while intellectual wit and humor, as it has to go to the brain and be reflected upon, can only be enjoyed by intellectual people. One you see with the eye, as when you look at the clown in the circus, with the white stars on one side and the red stripes on the other. The other, intellectual wit, I say has to % to the brain and be reflected upon before there can be laughter, as in the case of a paradox To illustrate the paradox, you all remember the two men who were talking about the sun and the moon when one main tained that the moon was of more account than the sun.
 seHow is that ?' asked his friend. tfWhy, the moon shines in the night when it is dark while the sun shines in the day time, when it is light enough without it." Laughter. #t ssl
 Then you remember the case of the man who was trying to pull on his boots. He pulled away until he broke of one of the straps. when his friend said:
 ''Why, Charley you'll never be able to get those boots on-tin you have worn lem a spell.'
 And you see, continued the speaker, as ripple of laughter went through the audi ence, that the longer we think of it the funnier it gets. Another, and perhaps the best paradox in the English language, was that splendid paradox of Artemus Ward, when he turned around to his friend and said
 q am bound to live within my means, if I have to borrow money to do it." Laugh ter.1 EF# q
 Now, there is no laughter in that paradox for fool, neither for wise man until his brain has acted. You can give such para doxes to fool all day long, and he'll look you straight in the face and won't smile once; and if you've got any fools in your family every family has fool or two Laughter drowning the sentence. William M. Evarts once stumbled into 8 splendid paradox. He was making dinner speech in Omaha and was complimenting the West in one of those glowing periods of his:
 sI like the Vest he commenced ssI like her self made men, and the more I trav- el West, the more I meet with her public men, the more am satisfied with the truth fitness of the Bible statement that .'the wise men came from the East'" Loud laugh ter.]
 The end of Mark Twain's duel story is an- other remarkable paradox. I mean when he tried to tell the audience how opposed he was to fighting duel q am so opposed to fighting duel," he said, ''so solemnly and religiously opposed,to fighting duel that I've made up my mind solemnly and earnest ly if anybody ever comes to me and chal- ienges me to fight duel I'll take him out behind the house and kill him" Laughter Now, let us ask the question, what causes laughter2 The rhetoricians all agree that laughter is caused by wit; then they go on to say that ''wit is a short lived surprise.'' They all agree to this defnition-Lord Ka- meg, Blair, Whately and Wayland. But they are all wrong. Laughter is always caused by some deformity in art or nature. If laugh ter were caused by some short lived surprise and that alone, then those passengers who pitched over Ashtabula bridge must have screamed with laughter ELaughter.] You are surprised when you fall down stairs but causes the laughter you only half state the case. The question is, what causes the sur prise When man is killed by whiskey- when he dies of delirium tremens-you may as well say that want of breath killed him as to say surprise causes laughter. Something must always cause the surprise.
 No, my friends, the cause of all laughter is some deformity. That is the cause of the cause. Laughter, I say, is caused by de- formed music, deformed grammar, deformed rhetoric, deformed logic, deformed oratory, deformed music, and a thousand other de- formities that might mention.
 Suppose you are walking along and ser pent darts out in front of you? It is ashort- lived surprise-short-lived to the serpent Claughter] but it don't produce laughter, does it ? But if you are walking along and see double-headed rooster running both ways to get away from itself [laughter], you'd all burst out laughing.
 Deformed grammar is very fertile source of fun. To Illustrate, heard little girl learning to read, the other day, and called her to me and said: sDidn't you have hard time learning to read?" ''Yes," she said, ''but bimeby rode" Laughter. You remember the little girl who did not want her sister to skin potato for her. 'sYou need not skin potato for me, Jenny" she said, q have one already skun." Laugh ter. Here is an old couplet about ex-Sena- tor Tweed-s'Boss' Tweed, of New York which illustrates:
 ttA cautious look around he stole,