Arizona weekly citizen., 1882-05-28
ELI PERKINs ON LYING.
EII Defends Innocent Lying Before the Young Mems Christian Association af In- dIanHpOIIs.

Yoang Hens Christian AssocIatIon af In-
 dIanHpOIIs.
 From the Indianapolis JournsLi
 Eli Perkins departed from his set lec- ture last night, delivered before the Young Mems Christian Association, and a crowded house, and made some wise remarks about lying;
 Now,my friends.t there has been good deal sad about lying in this country Iately. I confess that have been called n great liar myself. In fact the Tyre has been struck great many times Laugh ter.l You remember that Henry Wat terson, of the Louisville Courier-JOur- nal, said publicly on the steps of the hO- tel at Saratoga. last summer, that he was personally acquainted with three of the biggest liars-the biggest living liars in the world, aLl when they asked him who they were, he said; George Alfred Townsend is one and Eli Perkins IS the other tvoT' Great laughter. Now, my friends, speaking of lying, maln- tam that the funniest men have always been tue biggest liars. But I do not say vice versa that III the great liars are great humOrIsts. If this were the case, then the lawyers would be the funniest
 
 to be funny must be purely innOcent-it must be told to make our fellOw-men happy, and to harm DO man, or It must be told to make wrong ridiculous, as did the satires of Don QuixOte," ''Ginx's
 Baby" JuvenHl and Dean Swift. In fact, the lie must be an innocent Baron Munchausen lie. IT the old humOrIsts
 were not great liars, then Dean Swlft's l. .HnN liver's travels were as true as MOOdy's sermons, Thackeray's Yellow Plush Papers" were Sunday school tracts, and
 Baron Munchausen's four hundred gigantic lies were as true as Macaulay's History of England" Almost all fun l IS congregation, all exaggeratiOn Is ly ing. Mark Twain IS a fearful liar. Show
 me a single truth in Max. Adler's "El- bow Room Artemus Wards works are pure Actions, pure lies, with no sat ire, but told simply Co produce innocent laughter. Laughter cannot be produced
 without acting, painting or writing an innocent lie. The humorist artist, the
 caricaturist, like JO.In Leech and Cruik- shank, had no other element but the lie to draw upon tO P oduce laughter. They had to make long nose, blg ear, crOoled leg, or a cOckeye. No one ever laughed at true picture. If live man | really looked as Cruikshank or John Leeeh painted him, we would shed tears at his mOurnful condition. IT real
 man acted like Don QuiIOte, we would weep at his misfortunes. Sometimes people laugh at a great truth, for truth is often stranger, Sounds like bigger he) than fiction. This has always been my great trouble. Laughter. l have generally told such great, strange truths that the people would laugh be-
 cause they thought they were lies. So l have got the reputation of being a world ly minded humoTist, wben ID fact am great truth teller. To illustrate: One | night l was telling about the big trees in California. l said l rode into
 tree, a big hollow tree on | horseback, and then walked out at the
 knot-hOles. Laughter.l The people | laughed because they thought 1t was | lie, when, in fact, it was the truth. The | trees are thirty-fye feet in diameter,
 and the hole through them Is twelve ! Eess an diauaetar--as p,ida as throuah | barn door. To Illustrate what I mean 1 by an innocent Baron Munchausen story: I had an uncle William once, who got caught in fearful rain storm one night, when he was on his way to attend prayer meeting at New London, Coz necticut He started al New London on horseback, but when he got about half the way there. there arose a dread ful storm. The wind blew a hurrcane,
 the rain poured ID torrents, the light ming gleamed through the sky, and my uncle got in behind large barn. But in a moment the lightning struck the barn and knocked it into a thousand splinters, and sent his horses whirling over into a neighbOring cOrn-patch. "What did yon do then. Uncle Will liam?" I asked. "Well," said he, "I didn't know hardly what to do. was very much discouraged, but to tell the honest truth-the honest Connecticut truth, Eli, I went right out into the cornfield, took off my coat, bumped up my bare back, and took eleven strokes of lightning right on my bare back bone, drew the Tightening all out of the sky and then got onto my horse and into New London on time to lead at the evening prayer-meeting." Uproarious laughter.