The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-02-14
A SOLEMN RACE IN
FUTURE, LAUGHTER
UNHEARD
Mirthless Beings to Make Up
Population Unless the Ris-
Utilities of Our Descend.
ants Are Excited by Some
Device as Yet Unknown.

The human race is confronted with
new and growing danger. 1t is forgetting
now to laugh and is in peril of becoming
a race Of solemn, mirthless beings with no
outward evidence of the existence Of
The subject has become so grave that
1t has drawn to itself the attention of a
learned British scientist who takes the
topic OF laughter most seriously
The growing tendency to laugh threat
ems the whole social structure and prom
lses, if unchecked, to eliminate one of the
vital forces of life The absention from
laughter in itself might be tolerated if it
Gid not actually cause q deterioration in
the physical and mental structure Of hui
mainly. And, like other evils once start
ed. is likely to be handed down from
one generation to another, becoming more
and more pronounced in its progress.
With laughter will go one of the best
OF human characteristics, and there will
be nothing left but the more tense and
restrained elements.
Forgetting How to Play.
The British scientist who sounds the
alarm says:
ut seems fairly certain that the decline
OF popular mirth is only part of a larger
change, the gradual disappearance of the
spirit of play, of a full self abandonment
to the mood of light enjoyment. We may
see this not only in the forced gayety sup
piled by the gorgeous up to- date panto-
mime and other shows. 1t is illustrated
in the change that has come over cur
hands by the solemn-looking spectators
sounds stiff and mechanical.
This reduction of the full stream of
choraI laughter of a past age to meager
rillet may readily be supposed to be due
altogether to a, growing refinement of
manners in all glasses. Leaders of the
that loud. laughter is prohibited by it's
code of proprieties. The middle class in
which the imitation of social superiors
grows into a solemn cutie has naturally
A00n1p6 10 class
and the classes below may be disposed on
public occasions to consider Mother
spirit Of fun. Still the decline seems to
be much more than any such artificial
restraint would account for. The evil
dence available certainly favors the con-
clusion that, even when unfettered. the
people do not laugh long and loud as
they once did"
No Time for Laughter.
The restrained laughter is one thing
and the utter absence of it is another.
The latter falling is growing from the
intense mental and nervous strain under
which the man Of today is working. There
is no time for laughter; every effort Of
every advantage possible in the combat
for supremacy in the world of trade. 1t
IS evident everywhere and ever at high
pitch. These victims of the modern
creed of haste cannot relax The time for
mirth and laughter is given over to sleep
and rest. The waking hours cannot be
the busy world. This condition the sci
enlist explains by saying:
The seriousness Of today, which looks
as if it had come to pay a long visit,
may be found to have it's roots in the
great pushfulness. Of men, the fiercer
eagerness to move up in the scale Of
temper which this begets, the dtscon-
tent
The WEAKNESS, the fever, and the fret
1 which Kill. the capacity for whole heart
AnandOnInPllt Measures
far as this Is the case, what laughter sur
wives may be expected to take on the
tone of forced utterance with something
of a sigh of WEAKNESS behind it. 1t is
as though men had no time to laugh.
Even a social entertainment you viii
lind men and women who meet your
playful challenge 4enly with a niggardly
giggle which they instantly suppress;
poor, distracted souls unable for a mo-,
ment to free themselves from the chaos
of social claims Which haunts Them
AS a result Of the observations made,
the ,nonlaughing classes can be easily sep-
arated into two distinct groups those
who cannot laugh because of other hab-
its predominating and those who are al
ways and forever cultiYating the art Of
repression.
Habit Sometimes Acquired.
., The ), one who Is depressing his mirth
through his devotion to a fad is the one
who is doing the most harm. Like ali ac1
CURED habits, once fixed it is almost i'm
possible to cast off. The repressionist
laughter as thoroughly as the other, and
when the occasion arises for him to try
70 give vent to bit of real mirth he
finds the faculty is lost The result is A
dismal result and tunelesS imitation of
the genuine.
The laugh with a touch of venom in it
IS pointed out as the best evidence of the
wrong that is growing up. A cynical laugh
is not a true laugh and is condemned
with the utter absence of It,
A strong plea Is made for the return
free ShOnf In,
ter that carries with it health and good
feellng in the one who laughs and the
one who hears the sound which cannot
be counterfeited.
Value as an Aid to Health.
The value Of the laugh from a stand
point of health is unqestioned, and from
a moral view 1t is also powerful slim
uIant. the advocates Of laughter on
that point say:
The impulse to laugh will always take
Its complexion from the moral indus in
which 1t terminates; and the good man
tender and mindful of the dues of rev
erence, ennobles the mirthful temper. 1t
seems, indeed in such a moral 'milieu
TO become an expression, one of the most
beautiful, of goodness. 1t assures us
somehow of the genuineness of virtue,
and brings it nearer to US as something
human TO be loved. Free from all touch
of pride and malice, it takes on the look
OF child's joyousness made large and
benefcent by expansive sympathies
Laughter, then. may be claimed to be
one of the possessions Of men to which
they should jealousy cling It brings
gayety into what is always tending to
grow a dull world and of which at times
the onlooker is disposed to say what
Walpole said Of the doings Of the fash
1onable esthetes at Bath-'There never
was anything so entertaining or so dull
1t supplies diversion in youth and still
more in age, and it may with a few, as
it did with Heine and r. L. Stevenson,
remain a bright -comrade on the sick he'd.