Nevada County picayune., 1890-01-22
EFFECTS OF LAUGHTER.
It Prolongs Life by Conveying Stimufu-
 to the Vital Forces,

to tHe NtAi FOTCes.
 It is said that there is not remote corner or little inlet of the minute blood vessels of the human body that does not feel some wavelet from the great con- yulsion caused by hearty laughter shak- :ng the central man. Not only does tho blood move more quickly than it Is wont, but its chemical or electric con dition is distinctly modified, and it con- veys a different impression to the or gans of the body, as it visits them on that particular mystic journey when the man laughs, from what it does at other times. A genial, hearty laugh, there fore, prolongs life, by conveying dis tinct and additional stimulus to the vital forces. Best of all it has no re- morse in it. It leaves no sting, except in the sides, and that goes off Cicero thought so highly of it that he com plainod bitterly at one time that his fellow-citizens had all forgotten to laugh. Cicem mehercUk non pttto esse qmi his tempOribus ridere possH Titus, tho Roman Emperor, thought he had lost day if he had passed it without laugh. ing. What a world would this be with out laughter! To what dreary, dismal complexion should we all come at last, were all fun and cachinnation expurged from our solemn and scientific planet, Care would soon overwhelm us; the heart would corrode; the River of Life would he like the Lake of the Dismal Swamp; we should begin our career with sigh, and end it with a groan; while T q, t1 ttty, of "The Dead March in Saul" would make up the whole interlude of our ex- istence. Hume, the historian, in exam ming a French manuscript containing accounts of some private disbursements of King Edward II. of England, found, among others, one item of crown paid to somebody for making the king laugh. Could one conceive of wiser invest ment? Perhaps by paying one crown Edward saved another. The most ut terly lost of all days" says Ghamfort, lis that on which you have not once laughed" Even that grimmest and most saturnine of men, who, though Ae made others roar with merriment, was never known to smile, and who died lin a rage. like poisoned rat in hole'- Dean Swift-has called laughter the most innocent of all diuretics." Yet the philosopher of Concord R. w. Emerson, is reported as having said in a lecture: Laughter is to be avoided. Lord Chesterfield said that after he had come to the years of understand ing he never laughed" Lord Chester field would have had far more in- fiueuce if, instead of rcpressing every inclination to laugh, he had now and then given his ribs holiday-nay if he had even roared outright; for 1t would have disabused the public of the notion that he never obeyed natural impulse, but that every thing he said and did was pre-studied-done by square, rule and compass. As it was, though be was con fessedly the politest, best-bred, most in- sinuating man at court, yet he was reg ularly and invariably out-fanked and out-mannuvred by, Sir Robert Wal pole, who had the heartiest laugh in the kingdom. and by the Duke of Newcas- tie, who had the worst manners in the world. In commenting laughter we mean genuine laughter; not a make-be- licve; not the artificial or falsetto laugh of society, nor, again, the mere smile of acquiescent politeness, or the cracking of thorns under a pot, or the curl of the lips that indicates in the laughter be- lief fin his fancied superiority. Still less do we mean the hollow, mocking laugh of the cynic. The laughter which we would commend as healthful is not bit ter, but kindly genial and sympathetic. William Matthews. in Home Magazine