The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1899-12-22
HOW PEOPLE LAUGH
,o, soN MADE HIS SOLDIERS RAISE
"' LAUGH THAT WON A BATTLE.

l. Said That Laughter Was First
,-,od When Adam, on Awakening,
Saw Eve BY His Side.
r,.oo the days of Adam, who said to
SIM ;uvented laughter when he awoke
nave law Eve by his side, no two peo-
anu 80 a~ laughed alike. The laugh is
PIE met rs the voice. Women laugh
as iss. u-ayr'I from men, children from
dlilo,. indeed. even the laugh of a
WV ,i Isaarded man is different from
luL, which he laughs when he has
shaved. n,o.oon+ thoreb+ bo bod
,.l NV in the various enunciations
u s',,uehter a sure guide to the temper
~ of the laughers. Thus he said:
anu am Hal Hal" belonged to acholeric
nc "He! He! He!" to phlegmat-
p, o sU,' and "Ho! Ho! Ho!" to the san
y me- And it is scientific fact that
80 men commonly laugh in A and
n ~" women usually Taught E and l.
y those who practice laughing to any
...ent have been divided wittily into
Sin,rlers- and to know how charming
,hay can be, one has only to go back
~ charles Reade's "Simpleton with a
nimnle"-smilers, grinners, horse
ianghers and sneerers. This is to lay
down q science of laughing, for which
there might have been need had our
Generals in the late war taken up the
sSea Of old Bulow, who proposed to
torm troops in face of the enemy, in
line Of battle, and order them to ad-
vance with their arms at shoulder
and salute the foe with ringing bursts
OF laughter.
"pe sure" said Bulow, that your
onnonents. surprised and dismayed at
tbjs astonishing salute, would turn
about and run off"
Perhaps this scheme would not work
now. while the present long range ar
tillery is used; but, as matter of fact,
n is related that the Mamelukes once
furned tail from an assault upon the
French in Egypt on hearing the roar
of laughter with which Napoleon's vet
erans greeted the command: Form
in squares, asses and men of science
in the centre"
Great men often have fancied it a
part Of greatness to refrain from hilar-
ity. Philip ". of Spain is said to have
laughed only once in his life. That
was when his bride, Anne of Austria,
wept at hearing that the Queens of
Spain had no feet. She took with Ger
man literalness an old piece of Span
ish courtesy. AS she was journeying
toward Spain some German nuns met
her, and desired to present some stock
ings of their own knitting The
worthy Princess was about to accept
the gift when Spanish grandee of her
suite interfered with the remark that
It would be against etiquette. as the
Queens Of Spain were not supposed to
have any use for stockings, whereat
the Princess began to weep, under
standing, poor woman, that on her ar
rival in Spain her feet would be cut
off.
Lord Chesterfield said: Nobody has
seen me laugh since | have come to
my reason" and Congreve makes his
Lord Froth in the Double Dealer"
say; when / laugh | always laugh
alone" Young people and fools laugh
easily, says an old proverb, which Of
ten has proved true
Nevertheless. the singer Robert
gave lessons in laughter in Paris and
in London in 1905, and, so far at least
as filing his own purse went, with
success. He held that men and wo-
men could not laugh "decently and sys-
tematically" without proper training,
and said that person who could laugh
only in one tone seemed to him like
one VINO could say only oui and non;
but that a trained laughter should ex-
press many things.
1t is a curious fact that it is only
among the French and among the an
clients that we read of people laughing
themselves to death We. in our days,
must have either more jokes or dull
er appreciation of wit. Zeuxis is said
to have died of laughing at painting
OF an old woman. his own handiwork.
Philemon expired laughing at don
key who ate so cOntentedly the phil
osopher's figs that with his last ar
ticulate breath. he sent out his last
glass of wine to the beast. who drank it
with equal enjoyment. and thus proved
himself, it would seem, not such a
donkey after all.
1t remains true, however, that laugh
Ter is good for the health. Laugh
and grow fat" is the old proverb. Sy-
denham maintained that the arrival OF
a clown in a village was as wholesome
as that of twenty donkeys laden with
drugs. Tissot, the famous French
physician, cured consumption and liv-
er complaints by causing his patients
TO laugh, and Erasmus. through i'm
moderate laughter at the rude Latin OF
Huttens Letters of Obscure Men"
broke an internal abscess which had
long plagued him.
When a man smiles. and much
more when he laughs. 1t adds some
thing to his fragment of life," said
Sterne, who wished laughter enumerat-
ed in the materia medica, holding il as
a curative of the same kind as cough
ing sneezing, and perhaps vomiting.
only much pleasanter than any OF
these"
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