The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1889-05-02
LAUGH AND BE MERRY.
SOME METHODS OF PRODUCING
AND WAYS OF SHOWING MIRTH.

humor-Ine trencn Like Wit-Improve-
ment In Our Laughter Loving Propensity.
Laughter, when it is aroused by legitimate
provocation, is such wholesome and re-
freshing thing that it is melancholy to watch
the gradual atrophy Of the risible faculties
which seems to be the inevitable result of
advancing civilization. Not many years ago
there was an undergraduate at one of'our
universities who was blessed with so natural
and infectious laugh that he was regarded
by the whole college with certain degree OF
pride; and the dons when entertaining a
stranger at the high table, never failed to ex-
plain, when the familiar sound was heard
"Ohl that's -, the man with the laugh ="
We are not aware that the man with the
laugh has had a successor; and if this be so,
it is a matter of unmixed regret. For one
seldom hears genuine laugh nowadays, and
much of the phraseology of laughter is a
mere fashion of speech.
NO LAUGHS AND POOR LAUGHS
There are many people whose sides have
never ached from over indulgence in the out
ward expression of mirth. Indeed we believe
that just as there are cats who cannot purr,
so there are unfortunate human beings who
wheeze or a chuckle is the utmost they can
compass. Some men laugh habitually in fall
setto, which, we need hardly say, is far less
pleasant than laugh in the natural voice
And then there is what may be called $50
ciety" laugh, an artificial abomination almost
as execrable as the latest fashionable mon
strosity, the bent elbow overland shake.
We remember once to have heard femi-
nine laugh so painfully and regularly tuneful
that it could literally have been reduced to
musical notation. There is also a coarse
laugh to which we have heard the admirably
expressive epithet Of square mouthed" APP
plied-a Gargantuan laugh evoked by highly
favored anecdotes of the gun or smoking
room category. Love iSa liberal education,
as q Greek proverb, unconscously initiated
by Steele, has it, and, according to Shalfe-
speare, one of its refining influences is shown
in the matter of laughter When a man falls
in love, says Speed, he no longer laughs like
a cock crowing-and Speed was by profession
great authority on love and laughter.
The abatement of open laughter among us
is possibly due in part to the tendency of the
humorous literature of race to whom, ac-
cording to Mr.. Bryce, we are chiefly beholden
for our food for mirth-the Americans. The
essence of the modern American humor is
what Uncle Remus calls the 'dry grin" It
was hardly so with Artemus Ward, whose
lecture, delivered with the most melancholy
composure, was SO >agonizingly funny as to
enable many of his auditors to realize what
had been previously only a figure of speech
They laughed till they were perfectly ill OF
the inhabitarts of Great Britain tho Anglo
Irish have probably the greatest appreciation
Of humor, and possess the most infectious
laughs.
Our cousins the Germans enjoy joke
especially q hoax-as their phrase "Es list
yum Tode lachen," indicates, though the
greatest German joker of recent times,
Saphir, was Jew. The French are too logi-
cal to appreciate nonsense. Wit rather than
humor appeals to their temperament, though
the instance of Rabelais proves the danger Of
generalization. The Turk has great fund
Of dry humor latent in him, and enjoys q
sedate laugh; but he has poor opinion of
mascaralik, or habitual fooling. At the same
time he more than tolerates the humorous
and generally scandalous buffooneries of
Karagueuz Blackface), the Turkish Pulci
nello.
In Persia laughter is annually evoked by
the following rather cheap means: AS part
Of the Bairam festivities given by Persians
of high standing, number Of Jews, who
have been caught for the occasion, are sud
denly hustled into the deep haouz, or tank,
which is to be found in every courtyard, and
left to struggleout half drowned and bedrag
gled, amid the shrieks Of the spectators The
negro all the world over isreputed q laughter
loving creature, except when the outward
manifestation Of mirth is checked by the new
found sense Of dignity which accompanies
conversion to Islam. Whatever they feel,
the Chinese are certainly chary Of expressing
amusement in Occidental fashion. The Japan.
ese, ON the other hand, are an eminently
cheerful and merry people.
If, however, the tendency Of civilization il
rather to efface the outward and physical
symbols by which the natural man espresso
his mirth, against this loss may be set many
countervailing advantages. On the whole,
we crafty our laughter loving propensity in
far more legitimate fashion than the gen
Grafton of Theodore Hook. There is less
brutal horse play, less indecency, less of the
desire to amuse ourselves at tho direct ex-
other people.
The old Adam causes some of us to regret
the decline Of the harlequinade; but we
should reconcile ourselves to its elimination
by remembering that it was in great measure
true to life. The days of pantomimic practi-
cal joking-as drawn in the pages of "Tom
Cringles Log"-are over; and with the dis.
appearance Of the reality we can cheerfully
dispense with its mimic representation. II
we go further back, how swinish is the fun of
the Middle Agesl
What an infection court fool must have
been in real life, and how inhuman was the
practice Of making playthings of dwarfs-
always VIGOROUSLY sensitive to ridicule-who
should have been objects of pity rather than
butts of merrimentl We may laugh less
loudly than our great-grandfathers, but our
appreciation Of joke Is not necessarily any
the less keen on that account. Nor Is there
any loss Of virility or grit involved In this
purging Of fun of its grosser elements. A
man Is never less manly for having a pure