The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-02-19
AMERICAN FUN.
revere ard Unpublished, but Neye.
Immoral.

4. rsYcT emit ard Unpublished, but Ney6.
immoral.
n The london Standard noticing the
keath OF Josh Billings, speaks thus of
growth of a certain sort of Ameri-
N fun: The war brought into camps
I'd trenches men from every part OF
III country. They exchanged expert
ances, and, as the phrase went, ''swap'
ned stories" Moreover, out OF that
rbastlv struggle emerged an immense
mass of "war humor," The "Orpheus
d Kerr Papers" and Petroleum V.
yaseby" were the prime ~favorites in
HAT species of fun, and heexperiences
~ marching and counter marching
Iove qiven a tone to the humorists
Tho have since then cometo the front.
Thev have, however, drawn On q far
wider field than their predecessors.
Mark Twain" who is, perhaps, the
most widely read of all his class,
+inoed those sketches which so
GeIighted Mr.. Darwin with much of
tho old humor of the Mississippi, on
which he was born and bred. But,
Ike Bret Harte, he also taps the In
ovhaustible reservoir of California
droIlerv, and from the observations
suggested by that wider which
is the marked characteristic of the
new American. Charles Dudley War
ner is a quieter, more refined sayer of
GOOD things than his friend and near
Hneighbor in Hartford, while MIR. Lee
land. who seems to use his wit more as
a mediumtor his philologicallor is in
his "Breitmann Ballads ard other
works, scarcely American at all. Joel
Chandler Harris, one of the many ad-
mirable writer's whom the South has
produced since the war, takes the
negro folk lore as his theme, though
now and then healso produces sketch
es of southern life more III the old
style than anything which the latter
day humorists care to attempt But,
following these men, though at q con-
siderable distance, are what may be
called the newspaper caricaturists,
such as Mr.. Heber Clark, who writes
under the name of MAX Adeler,"
Robert Burdette, James Bailey and
Charles Smith, who is better known
as "Bil Arp" Sometimes their
humor is a little strained, and often
it is very local. In every case it is dif-
ierent from that of England. 1t has
nothing in common with Fielding, or
Smollett, or Thackeray, or, happily,
with Rabelais or Villon. The differ.
ence between opera bouffe and an An
glo-Saxon farce is the difference be.
tween the humor of the Frenchman
and of the English in America. The
snob and the husband T not satiriz-
ed. The American devotes his domes-
tic jocosity to the whimsicalities OF
the small boy, the widow, themother-
in-law, the bully, the visionary specu,
lator, the gamester and the CONNER
cial traveller. Fighting and money
getting afford the principal subjects,
and in the South it is mainly confined
to the former. 1t is seldom deep,
though always clear, and depends
mainly on e~xaggeration and a blending
OF Jest and earnest, which some ons
has described as the singing of comic
words to a sad tune, or telling a pre-
posterous story with a grave face.
When Mr.. Lowell declares that a ne
gro was SO black that charcoal made
a chalk mark on him" orthat a wood.
en- single vas painted SO like marble
that it sunk, he illustrates the
leading feature of American humor.
Again, when "Artemws Ward''-whom
most people now know to have been
baptized Charles Browne-tells us Of
ayoung man who claimed to be ex-
empted from serving as a soldier "be-
cause he was the only son of widowed
mother-who supported him" we
laugh, not al the humor of the situa.
tlon-for there is none-but at the I'M
expected turn the excuse tai es. This
Was tshe key to the fun of Josh Bill
Ings" and the legion who have initial.
ed 1T. They show no reverence for
anything or anybody. They are not
polished gentlemen, or even .men oil
nigh education, like Lowell and
Homes. But if sometimes vulgar, and
often far-fetched, there Is this to be
said for their humor-it is " i'm.
moral, and is therefore very unlike
that which derives it's inspiration
rom the other side Of the channel, or
even from the full-bodied wit Of
the GeOrpian and Carolinian times.