Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-15

others. the spectacle of successful contest.
All of these situations cause man to laugh.
Laugh and grow fat is old proverb.
The psychologist recommends laughter as
beneficial to health A hearty outburst ac-
CELEBRATES the circulation and more COM
pletely oXygenates the blood 1t relieves
the brain by quickening the movement
of the blood through the fine and readily
clogged vessels which permeate its tissues.
Moreover, hearty laughter produces a con-
siderable increase of vital activity because
it heightens nervous stimulation. More
over, i, exercises certain muscles not other
wise put into action.
Other Laughing Animals.
1.-The laughing animal, is a designation
which man applies to his own kind, exclu-
sively. But DIR. Sully finds among mon
keys something akin to our smile. Young
chimpanzees and ourangs utter distinct
chuckling and laughing sounds. DR.. Robin-
son finds that the tickish spots on man
like apes correspond to those of children.
But in DR.. Sully's opinion the dog, of all
our lower cousins, gives much the clearest
indications of a sense of fun. And speak
ing of tickling, the writer has definitely
in mind a very playful fox terrier which,
when tickled in the region of the axillae
corresponding to the human arm-pits),
raises his mouth at the corners, slightly
shows his teeth and otherwise assumes an
expression strikingly akin to our facial
laughter.
We used to hear it said that laughter
originated in pain and that he who first
laughed did so in torture. This recent
worldwide study of the mirthful impulse
has brought to light one theory worthy of
notice: That the basis of the smile is the
movement of the mouth made by the infant
to express its pleasurable experience In
partaking of it's first natural food.
We begin life with the exceeding gravf-
ty of babyhood.'' then approach our age
of greatest hilarity and finally reach the
"stolid composure of senile infancy" A
study of laughter in infants results in show
ing that the average child acquires a per-
feet smile of pleasure in the second month
of life. Laughter first manifests itself a
month later Experiments upon American
children indicate that laughter first shows
itself in the eyes seven times where it
originates at the mouth only five times.
Laughter of Savages.
Many writers have depicted savages as
dull stoics who know not how to. laugh
But ethnologists know better than this and
have discovered that primitive people give
vent to exclamation when left to them
selves and not depressed by the presence
of the conqueror. The savage resembles
the civilized child in his laughter. The
most hearty and voluminous laughter of
any society always comes from its lowest
stratum. The testers of the Greeks and
1bOmdHS were recruited from the Save
class: those of European courts from the
peasantry.
The decline of laughter is change too
recent to be easily explained, says DIR.
Sully. 1t is probably one phase of whole
alteration of temper in the mass of the
people.
1.-The sharp class antagonisms of the
hour, especially that of employer and en-
ployed. leave but little hope for the revival
of a choral laughter of a whole people,
says he. 1T seems fairly certain that the
decline of popular mirth is only the part
of larger change-the gradual disappear
ance of the spirit of play and of a full
self-abandonment to the mood of light en-.
joyment."
JOHN ELFRETH WATKINS, Jr.