The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-03-05
TIE ENGLISH IDEA or FUN.


TIE ENGLISH IDEA OF FUN.
insomnia and bankruptcy. 1t turns u
bore into a jeu d'esprit and q piano next
door into a celestial harp. If used in
moderation, it is o blessing, but when
carried to excess it biteth like a serpent
and stingeth like an adder. Hail to it,
Long may it reign!
Humor has evoluted from a physical
fact to a mental exercise, from u chance
luxury into an actual necessity. Its pri-
NAL source was exemplifed i'll pain and
trouble. its origin being the mirth
evoked among savages at the sight Of
distorted or crippled humanity. A
hunchback or q clubfooted man even to-
day is a huge joke among barbarian
peoples. In their uncultured eyes he is
quite as humorous rs one of Zim's pic
tureS Of q colored man being kicked in
lne stomach ny q long legged COW Or
Francis Wilson in comic opera. Savages
find vast amusement i'll witnessing a
captive burning at the stake. They
really keenly enjoy a torturing bee, and
an Eskimo has been known to laugh
gleefully at seeing his wife in the ON
brace Of a polar bear. Time brings its
revenges, however, and today the hu-
morist is the victor, not the victim. He
fortunes his audience and goes home to
laugh as he counts the proceeds.
To the deep thinking mind there is
something saddening i'll the thought
that humor is sven Of pain, but it is,
alas, too true. "Humpty Dumpty'' and
"Punch and Judy" both old comedy
effects, testify to this creation of laugh
ter by the misfortunes of others, and it
underlies many of the comic effects of
today.
Ghosts of Dead Jokes Haunt Us.
Students of this interesting subject
have long aud earnestly searched for the
original funny man, the one who is to
blame for all the puns, jokes and quips
now strewn knee deep along times path
way, but he is lost i'll tho foggy back
ground of antiquity. Peer into the dim
past. haunted by the ghosts of those
who TESTED before the alphabet was in
vented, and you will see the already
aged spooks of the mothcr-in-law, the
bulldog, the pants seat, the William
goat and the baldhead joke, us well as
MANY, many others. These jests were
uttered i'll tongues now dead and forgot.
ten, but their spirits still live.
And yet the original joker must have
existed. mean the first Jester, no the
practical joker, who was u simian nro-
totype, but the man who by comically
reciting his own misery made others
laugh and who became Il favorite at
mastodon or cave bear banquets and had
delicate morsels of marrow sent him by
his admirers. His paleolithic gags are
still lying III wait in back country tav-
ems, and each generation finds them
new and funny, and nations yet unborn
are awaiting them in the silence of the
hence. This prehistoric Jester was the
father of bumor, just as his boon COM
panion who carved on reindeer horn or
mammoth tusk was the father of art
the first mon who took an optimistic
view of life.
Tho striking feature of the jests of
antiquity, when wo come within tho
historic period, was i'll their primitive
coarseness, even obscenity, which is gen.
orally laid TO the rudencss of tho age.
The ancient joke was quite decollete at
both ends. 1t is Il sad commentary to
know that one Of our greatest and most
prolific humorists hasremarkcd that "the
funniest and wittiest things unfortu-
nately could not BIO told i'll decent So
ciety." Every classic work has some
we'll meant attempt at humor which
probably served it's purpose. Even Greek
and Egyptian mythology had lists of
tho practical jokes of the gods them
selves.
Tho Bible is probably the only work
that lacks q humorous element-that is,
of deliberate purpose. The scmireligious
plays of medieval times were more
than half butfoonery of the coarsest,
lewdest sort, and quito until the begin
ming of this century humor had Il de-
cidedly ripe flavor indeed, and such of
1T as was printed is now read and kept
where the children cannot get at it.
1t is q fact, moreover, hat popular
humor must smell Of the soil, SO to