The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-06-15
THREADBARE JOKES.
Humorists Badly in Need of a Radi-
cal Regeneration.
Paris, June, 1902.

Washington Star.
Now that we've got pretty good run
ming start and have Hoped easily around a
couple Of the mile posts of the twentieth
century" remarked the man who looked
pretty much at ease with himself, II should
say that there's no better time than right
now for the elimination. not to say the abb
solute obliteration, Of about three-fourths
OF the standard and standing newspaper
jokes of the dead-and-gone nineteenth CEN
fury. There's a certain large bundle Of
funnyisms that should never have been
brought forward to the twentieth century
at all. For example, we don't throw boot
Jacks at the yowling cats on the back fence
any more, for the most obvious of all rea-
sons, namely, that few of us have clapped
an eye on a bootjack for a matter of
twenty-five years or more. Nor do we eX-
tend unto the wives of our bosoms the re-
proving eye in these days for not sewing
buttons on our shirts, again for the per-
tectly simple reason that few IL any or us
have worn shirts with buttons sewed onto
| them for long number or years. We don
find the picnic custard pie filled with ants
| nowadays, because the picnic habit is a
| thing that passed out long since, except in
| the exceedingly rural districts. We don't
| froth at the mouth any more-if, indeed,
| we ever did-oVer the prospective visit of
| our mother-in-law, for the simple reason
! that all of us that have got the sense we
were born with have found out that moth
| ers-in-law, taking them as a class and in
| large are mighty fine institution, and
| that they take our end Of it against their
/ daughters, our wives, in about four cases
| out of five. The sitting-up-w ith-a-sck-
| friend funnyism always was more or less
| of a stretched affair, for the reason that
not one man in million ever sits up
| with sick friend-there are always kind
] ~, ministering women folks. God bless
EN-, around to sit up with the poor chaps
| that are sick.
These are only few Of the shriveled
| jokes that have served their little turn
| and that should now be forever folded
/ away or thrown on the dump. Another of
| these outworn jokes, and the one that
! started me off on this little monologue,
| is that idiotic gag which derides the cult
| nary performances of the young woman
| who has taken course of training at a
| cooking school. l can't say outright that
| that joke always was based on misappre-
| hension or something worse, for my own
| knowledge of results of a cooking school
! training has only been derived within the
past couple of years, but in my opinion
| that joke was utterly grOundlesS and
| foolish affair from the beginning.
i've got couple of grown daughters
that took their little course together at q
/ cooking school, and these girls take turns
in getting their dads dinner for him-their
| mother has dropped out of the running
| altogether, being a wise woman and per-
| fectly able to perceive how completely
outcassed she is by her girls in the cook
| ing business. Well, the dishes that those
| girls frame up for these dinners are about
as fine, I'd be willing to gamble, as any
| thing fashioned and contrived in the cul-
| mary line this side of Delmonico's. If 1
! got any better things TO eat than those
girls, with their cooking school training.
| set before me, wouldn't be able to stand
| 1t. Long years ago l used to swear b. the
cooking of my mother, as most fellows do.
| and then, when 1 got married and broke
| my wife into my little kinks in the eating
| line, l gradually grew TO believe-again,
| like most fellows-that my wife had the
whole skirted world beat to death when
it came to cooking and serving the right
| kind of food. But when these two girls
/ of mine got through with their cooking
! lessons and began TO put the results of
| had to put UP both hands and declare to
myself that I'd really never tasted any
thing good to eat until they'd cooked it
! tor me.
| that was old-fashioned enough to care for
only the kind of table fare that is called
! plain and substantial but If l had to eat
| that species of food now / think I'd be
| about the sorest individual in the District
of Columbia. The fancier those girls put
| the stuff before me now the better their old
dad likes it. And they don't give me any
| thing indigestible or calculated to set me
up with the govt, either. Their culinary
devices are all founded upon hygienc prin-
| ciples, and now l often wonder how / ever
! got away with the plain and substantial
| food without dying of dyspepsia. They
| often set things before me that / don't
| know the meaning of at all-that is, I've no
| idea as to their composition or groundwork
| but these things are all bully TO eat, all
the same, and as long as that's the case it S
not my business to ask any questions
| That's why I say that the musty and
| probably never-was-true cooking school
| joke should be corked up and put away on
| the topmost and busiest shelf alongside of
the rest of the frayed and frazzled humor-
Gus remnants that broke into the new cen
| fury by mistake"