The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-09
THE WIT OF THE IRISH.
DIFFICULTY TO REFRAIN FROM
 JOKING.
Difference in Archbish ops Saying and Hearing HI Narured ThinEs-Humor ofthe Peasants.

It looks as though wit and humor were indigenous in Ireland, but exotic in England and Scotland when you find the English and Scots humorist usually laughing at his subjects and the Irish with his. In Dickens novels, for in stance, and in those of MT. Barrie, the peasant personages say their humorous things in wooden unconsciousness of their humor but what character in any Irish play or novel says a humorous thing-other than a bull-unconscious- ly? T joke wi deefculty" says the Scotsmen! but the difficulty with the Irish is to refrain from joking. Hence I think one characteristic of Irish wit and humor is it's lightness of touch and tread. It needs but light touch to strike a match on prepared sur- face, and the surface of the Irish mind is always prepared for joke.
 Some time ago a friend of mine ask ed a Dublin corner boy why he was staring intently after an old gentleman who was tripping up Grafton street with all the jaunty elasticity of youth, Whats the matter with the old gentle WiIdt IIlC 11dLLCI N1u AlIlL : Look at the walk of him! Begor! he only touches the ground in an odd place!" Tn right of his Celtic blood the Irishman, in his wit and humor espe- cially, never walks with the ponderous policeman's tread, but 'only touches the ground in an odd place."
 I cannot resist quoting here a simi- lar comment made on senile agility by an old beggar woman which the late Father Ryan overheard in Hartcourt street. The Catholic dean, a septuagen- arian, broke off a conversation with Father Ryan in order to hurry after and catch passing tram, to the amazed admiration of the old beggar woman. "Yerrah, look at the ould dean," she cried, more to herself than to Father Ryan, "skippin' about like new mar ried hea!" If "the ould dean'' had been a Protestant dignitary her comment would probably have been as caustic as that of another old woman whom Le sFanu, the novelist's brother, over- heard in Stephens Green. Archbishop Whately, who delighted to shock con- ventions, was sitting and swinging on the rails which fence the green oppo- site his palace, playing with his dog when two old Catholic ladies approach ed. That's the archbishop" whisper ed one to the other, who thinking it must be the Roman Catholic archbish- op, exclaimed, rapturously: "Ah, the dear, darlint man! As innocent and Rs playful as 8 blessed lamb!'' Where upon her friend angrily explained. Its the Protestant archbishop" to the in stant changing of the tune of her com- pafion who snorted: "The ould fool!"
 And here I may note a significant contrast = applicable historically be- tween popular and literary Irish wit and humor. Literary Irish wit and hu- mor, being those of the Pale and of the ascending class, are sweet-natured, whereas popular Irish wit and hunor, being those of the people who for cen- turies have been suppressed, are sar- donic, says Richard Ashe King in the Tatler. "Pasquinade" is a word which dates back to day and to city in which suppression was pushed to the last turn of the screw, and it is proba- bly, to the character of their history as much as to their own character that the Italians owe their just reputation of being the most sarcastic people of Eu- rope. It is even more to the character of their history than to their own char acter that the causticity of popular Irish wit and humor is due.
 Why otherwise should Irish literary wit and humor have the singular merit of good nature? Singular, since ninety nine-hundreths of all the recorded wit <aF fJ,e.x ;e, aoti i+o currency to it's i'll nature. It is preserv- ed by it's brine. T hear, MT. Rogers, " said a lady friend to the poet, whose tongue cut like sharp razor, T hear, MT. Rogers, that you are in the habit of saying very ill-natured things. .""Per- haps so, madam" replied the poet. 'fBut, as you hear, have a very weak voice, and if I did not say ill-natured things nobody would hear me-" It is ill-natured things which, like diseases, are propagated, while the good-natured are no more infectious than health.
 It is much to it's credit, therefore, that Irish literary wit is sweet-natur- ed. How tart flor instance, is the wit of the wittiest of English comedies the comedies of the Restoration-of Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, with one exception, that of an Irishman, Farquhar. "Farquhar," says Hazlitt, t'of all the dramatists of the Restora- tion alone make us laugh from pleas Ire, not from malice" The same critic again, after saying of Sheridan's stSchool for Scandal that "it was the most finished and faultless comedy we have" adds, Besides the wit and in- genuity of this play there is a genial spirit of frankness and generosity which does the heart good.' How sweet-natured, too, the humor of Gold smith and Dick Steele. By the way, it is a comedy of Steele's that Sydney Smith pays the compliment of selecting from 1t an ideal specimen of humor. Here it is:
 In Dick Steele's "The Funeral what a title for a comedy!-the under faker arranges the mutes in the order of the forlornness of their countenances --the most lugubrious looking near the coffin, the least near the door. When, however, he turns to give the place of honor near the corpse to his premier knight of the rueful countenance he finds to his disgust his countenance rueful no longer. "You internal scoun- drel!!" he exclaims. Didn't take you put of great mans service? Didn't l