The Portland daily press., 1892-02-04

| the nrSC paper Will heop Hio AitoIcI 50
long that when it is returned many of
| the ideas will be stale, and yet the edi-
tors cannot be blamed for this. They
are wonderfully conscientious in their
duties, and the vast mass of material
| they receive necessitates much work.
| Each lot, as a rule, is carefully read,
unless it bears unmistakable evidence of
worthlessness. A joke or a good idea
for cartoon is a thing that may be
picked up in an out of the way place,
| and so the editor of humorous paper
is usually on the lookout for something
good in MS. that shows on its face that
it was not written by professional.
The editor of one of the leading funny
papers said to the writer not long ago
that he got many of his ideas in this
way. "Away back in the interior dis
tricts," he said, ga man will treasure up
joke all the year until Christmas,
when he will get hard up and send it in.
And often it will be good one too"
The best papers sometimes send a check
for the matter accepted in a few days
after it has been accepted and sometimes
on publication. A good funny man,
however, if he tries, has little difficulty
in getting spot cash for his matter.
The methods of writing jokes vary
according to the individual. An artist
who writes his own jokes says that as
he is walking along the street he will
see striking figure. This he will treas
ure up in his mind, or make a rough
sketch of it, until he finds another figure
to go with it. Then he has them talk
to each other, and thus evolves joke,
or something that approaches it. One
of the most successful joke writer's of
the present day says that he makes it
rule to write twenty-five jokes after din
ner every night. Sometimes he will
write twenty of them in an hour, and it
will take him two hours more to grind
out the other five. Another writes i'm
mediately after breakfast.
He begins by shutting out the real
world and calling up in his imagination
a world of his own. For instance, he
sees in his mind grocery store. He
walks inside. There is the grocer lean
ing over the counter with sugar and
sand smile on his face, and there is the
grocer's boy and there is the innocent
customer, and then he makes them
talk. Sometimes they talk themselves,
he says, before he has time to start them.
Usually the next scene will be in sharp
contrast to this-a church, or luxuri-
GUS dwelling house In regard to the
income, this same funny man says that
at one time when he wrote twenty jokes
day he averaged fifty cents for each
joke he wrote, including those rejected,
and that when he wrote fifteen a day
his total income was just as much.
Still another who has been at it for
years and whose jokes are quoted all
over the world, says he never writes un-
less he feels like it. Then he will write
a vast quantity of matter and from this
he will Gull out the best.
It is mistake to suppose that funny
men are happier than other mortals, or
that the capacity to write something
humorous indicates happy disposition.
The reverse is usually the case. It is
often true that mans capacity for
humorous work is in direct ratio with
his capacity for sorrow. The bright
picture that is called up in your mind
by piece of newspaper humor is often
produced in an atmosphere of gloom. In
fact, the consideration of how the pub
lie is likely to regard your work often
creates this atmosphere.
The writer was recently talking with
a funny man about this, when the latter
reached into his desk and drew forth
piece of MANILA paper. 81 sat down and
wrote this the other night" said he,
''while was waiting for the dinner bell
to ring. It shows the way feel some
tines"
"My son, do you call to mind our old
friend, Charlie Lamb, who flourished a
little while back and who used to get
up SO early in the morning to write
jokes that he hardly gave the earth time
enough to turn around? How would you
like, when the first gray streaks of light
are falling in line inside your bedroom
window, to be awakened by the gentle
Standardization of your patent alarm
clock to the grim fact that you have got
to write certain number of jokes be-
fore breakfast? How would you like,
day after day, to call up to your whip
ping post the worn out slaves of your
imagination and scourge them into
yielding up their meager stock of hui
NOR? How would you like to be fol-
lowed continually by the dim ghost Of
some gaunt joke, to have him dog your
steps wherever you go, to be always
reaching out to throttle him and grasp.
ing nothing?
"No doubt you have pictured to your
self that it would be nice and pleasant
to be a real live humorist and to carry
around in your pocket lot of assorted
jokes, but you won't find it SO nice and
pleasant when your critics complain
that there is no meat in them. My
friend, you won't like it SO well wher
you are introduced over and over again
to the man who tells you he thinks some
of your jokes are very goodwill the
accent on the some. You won't like to
be laughed at when you mean to be seri-
GUS, and to be frowned on when you
mean to be funny; to be trying continu-
ally to rise to the occasion and never