New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-02-17
AMERICAN FUN.

AMERICANS FUN.
Trreversnt and Unpublished. but Never
Immoral.
The London Standard noticing The
death OF Josh Billings, speaks thus of
the growth of a certain sort of Ameri-
can fun: Thewar brought into camps
and trenches men from every part OF
the country. They exchanged expert
ences, and, as the phrase went, swap
ped stories. :" Moreover, out OF that
CHASTITY struggle emerged an immense
mass of sswar humor." The sOrpheus
G. Kerr Papers and Petroleum V.
Nasebys were the prime favorites in
that species of fun, and the experiences
Of marching and counter marching
have given a tone to the humorists
who have since then cometo the front.
They have, however, drawn on far
wider field than their predecessors.
MARX Twain, !" who is, perhaps, the
most widely read of all his class,
tinged those sketches which SO
delighted Mr.. Darwin with much OF
the old humor of the Mississippi, on
which he was born and bred. But,
like Bret Harte, he also taps the in
exhaustible reservoir of California
drollery, and from the observations
suggested by that wider 70 aiming which
is the marked characteristic of the
new American. Charles Dudley War
ner is quieter, more refined sayer of
good things than his friend and near
neighbor in Hartford, while Mr.. LIE
land. who seems to use his wit more as
a medium for his pathological lore, is, in
his tBreitmann Ballads and other
works, scarcely American at all. Joel
Chandler Harris, one of the many adj
mlrable writer's whom the South has
produced since the war, takes the
negro folk lore as his theme, though
now and then he also produces sketch
es OF southern life more in the old
style than anything which the latter
day humorlsts care to attempt. But,
following these men, though at a 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 "Bill Arp" Sometimes their
hu1nor is q little strained, and often
it is very local. In every case it is diff
terent 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 Che Frenchman
and OF the English in America. The
snob and the husband are not satiriz-
ed. The American devotes his domes-
| tic jocosity to the whimsicalities Of
the small boy, the widow, the mother
ln-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 exaggeration and q blending
OF jest and earnest, which some one
] 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 ne
gro was so black that charcoal made
a chalk mark on him." or that a wood
en- shingle was painted SO like marble
that it sunk, he illustrates the
leading feature Of American humor
Again, when sArtemas Ward whom
most people now know to have been
baptized Charles Browne-tells us of
a young man who claimed to be ex-
empted from serving as soldier "be-
cause he was the only son OF widowed
mother-who supported him." we
laugh, not at the humor of the situa-
tion-for there is none-but at theun-
expected turn the excuse takes. This
was the key to the fun of "Josh Bill
ings" and the legion who have initial
ed it. They show no reverence for
anything or anybody. They are not
polished gentlemen, or even men of
high education, like Lowell and
Homes. But if sometimes vulgar, and
often far-fetched, there is this to be
said for their humor-it is never i'm
moral, and is therefore very unlike
that which derives it's inspiration
from the other side of the channel, or
even from the full-bodied wit of
the Georgian and Carolinian times. :