Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1903-04-17
EVOLUTION OF HUMOR.
JAMES 1. FORD BELIEVES SATIRE
WILL SOON BECOME POPULAR.
seelne Somebody Get The Worst Of Il
underlles All Funny Happenings the
World Around--All True Wit Must
Have a Foundation In sincerity.

Philosophers who look upon passing
events through the rose-colored
glasses of optimism may find cause for
rejoicing by comparing OR national
humor of To-Day with that of the so.
called newspaper school, that -four
ished from quarter to third of a
century ago.
1t was at a time when the entire
American nation seemed to be liter.
ally hungering after something funny
that 'The Danbury News Man" "The
Detroit Free Press Man." THE Bur.
lington Hawkeye Man. and a score
of others of their class sprang into
a sudden local renown which, In many
cases, grew into national fame. Their
humor was as general thing, of what
Is known professionally as the "acro.
batic" school. That is to say, 1t was
founded on human catastrophes of the
sort pincident to the treacherous ba-
mana peel, the putting up of the stove
pipe, the return from the lodge, the
depredations of the goat and the per-
versities of the yellow dog. In the
humor or this school, inebriety, in its
many droll phases, played part
whose Importance it would be hard to
overestimate.
We have outgrown this school at
at it, for, after all, it was true, ster-
ling humor, founded on the same
deathless principle of seeing some
body get the worst of 1t underlies all
funny happenings the world around
the same principle that forms the
backbone alike of Thackery's satire
and the early English jokes of the
Observation-Disclosures variety.
Moreover, it was a clean, honest hui
NOR which served the double purpose
of educating the popular taste and de-
veloping a few writer's, like Mark
Twain and Eugene Field, who are now
source of national pride.
Fer my own part, | look back with
feelings to tender regret to the days
when humorist could not only write
1000 words upon opening a bottle of
kumyss or 1900 about losing a collar
button under the bureau, but also fear
lessly offer it in the marts of litera-
ture. Those were days when a humor-
ist could set up his workshop in some
pleasant country place, and with no
stock in trade save such familiar
properties as the mother-in-law, the
goat, the stovepipe, the banana peel
and the lodge grind out living that
Oh OF I, 4
good health. Once or twice a month
he would visit the city, bringing with
him basket of his wares. Most of
the publications in those days dealt
exclusively in acrobatic humor, with
the exception perhaps of one which
had what was called "a refined FAM
lily circulation" and was. therefore,
little four-year-old, or Our friendly
W., who lives in x and is quite a
wag in his way" No acrobatic jokes
could be sold to the editor of that
periodical, except those from which
the curse had been craftily removed
by crediting them TO Captain X. of
the Forty-seyenth Massachusetts reg
iment.
In the early sos the growing popu-
larity of Puck" Life" and Judge"
led to the establishment of pages or
columns of original humorous matter
in vast number of periodicals, Great
ing demand for humor great enough
to overtax the capacity of the regular
| ly accredited members of the craft 1t
was this extraordinary and unlocked
| for call for humorous matter that leu
vast number of men and women to
cultivation of the soil, the cleansing
of household linen, the mending of
| tinware and the picking of huckleber-
ries in order that they might become
| American humorists. But IN spite of
| the competition of this cheap un-
skilled labor, the professionals profited
greatly by this active market and the
art of nursing a joke and causing it
| to crystalline into dozen or more
| distinct marketable forms, not one of
which could be detected as a plagar-
ism of any of the others, was corried
to higher degree of perfection dur
| ing this period than ever before in the
! history of American letters.
The best of the humorists, however,
sought wider field for their efforts in
the pages of the magazines, the &C.
ceptance of one article or story being
| deemed sufficient 10 change them from
mere funny writer's to literary men"
and adding materially to the value of
their signature.
At last the public began to tire of
humorous pages made up of para
graphs, verses and two-line dialogues
-"short stuff" as it was called-and
| displayed marked preference for the
| Sunday humorous article signed by
some well-known name. 1t was on
this wave of pupuiar taste that Bill
Nye, who had made his first reputa-
ton on a western newspaper, came
into great popularity as the pioneer of
the syndicated weekly article, which
at the time of his death. brought him
an income of 5000 week and rem
dered him prosperous to a degree that
the humorists of an elder day never
| dreamed or
Bill Nye was the last leader of the
race of American newspaper humor-
lists and one of the best CT them as
we'll The school which he represent
ed is fast disappearing from its native
soil, but it seems to have taken firm
root in England under the fostering
care of Jerome X. Jerome and his fol-
lowing.
AS for cur own humor in its most
modern phases, 1t is more like that Of
Benjamin Franklin, the earliest hui.
morist of cur nation, than anything
that has been known here in many
decades. 1t is satirical rather than
acrobatic, and deals with mental
moods rather than with disasters. Its
most popular commercial form is tina.
OF the syndicated Sunday article, and
its chief prophets are Mr. Finley P.
Dunno and Mr.. George Ade
Judging from the most pronouno ed