Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1889-03-28
CONCERNING LAUGHTER


mails, hut Nation from Nation.
It is no literary fiction that ascribes
the shedding of tears to horses and
dogs, and in tho case of the latter. sor-
row, and not mere physical pain. is
apparently often the predisposing
cause. But laughter, on the other
hand, is undoubtedly one of the at
tributes which distinguishes man from
all other living creatures Dogs ap-
pear to smile, but the resemblance is
probably chance one, and to ''grin
like a dog" was evidently synonymous
in the mind of the Psalmist was very
poor form of mirth. Laughter not
only distinguishes man from animals,
but man from man and nation from
nation. It meant one thing to the
Hebrew and another to the Greek.
One has but to recall the passages in
which laughter is mentioned in the
Bible, to be confirmed in the convic-
ton that the Jews had little knowledge
of, or sympathy for, that mirth which
is the spontaneous outcome of the
mere joy of living, or which is pro-
voked by the conflict of wit or of
humor. The abatement of open laugh
ter among us is possibly due in part
to the tendency of the humorous litera-
ture of race to whom. according 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
grins." It was hardly so with Artemus
Ward. whose lecture, delivered with
the most melancholy composure, was
80 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
i'll. OF the inhabitants of Great Britain
the Anglo-Irish have probably the
greatest appreciation of humor, and
possess most infectious laughs. Our
cousins, the Germans. enjoy joke
especial hOax-as their phrase, Els
ist gum Tode lachen, indicates, though
the greatest German joker of recent
times, Saphir. was Jew. The French
are too logical to appreciate nonsense.
Wit rather than humor appeals to their
temperament, though the instance of
Rabelais proves the danger of general
ization. The Turk has great fund of
dry humor latent in him, and enjoys a
sedate laugh; but he has poor opin-
ion of mGscurGlik, or habitual fOoling.
At the same time he more than tOler-
ates the humorous and generally scan
dalous buffooneries of Karagueuz
(Blackface), the Turkish Pulcinelo.
In Persia laughter is annually
evoked by the following rather
cheap means. AS part of the Bal
ram festivities given by Persians of
high standing, a number of Jews, who
have been caught for the occasion,
are suddenly hustled into the deep
haouz or tank, which is to be found in
every courtyard, and left to struggle
out half drowned and bedraggled,
amid the shrieks of the spectators.
The negro all the world over is reput-
ed laughter-loving creature, except
when the outward manifestation of
mirlh 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 Occident-
al fashion. The Japanese, on the
other hand, are an eminently cheerful
and merry people. If, however, the
tendency of civilization is rather to
efface the outward and physical SYM
bols by which the natural man ex-
presses his mirth, against this loss
may be set many countervailing advan-
tages. On the whole, we crafty our
langhter-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
the direct expense, to the discomfort,
or by the pain of other peo-
pie. The old Adam causes some
of us to regret the decline of the harle-
quinade; but we should reconcile our
selves to its elimination by remember
ing that it was in great measure true
to life. The days of pantomimic prac-
teal joking-as drawn in the pages of
''rom Cringle's Log'-are over. and
with the disappearance of the reality
We can cheerfully dispense with its
mimic representation. If we 60 further
back, how swinish is the fun of the
Middle Ages! What an infection court
fool must have been in real life, and
how inhuman was the practice of maxi
ing playthings of dwarfs-always no
tOriOusly sensitive to ridicule-who
should have been objects OF pity rath-
er than butts of merrimenti We NAV