The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-25
BITS OF UNCONSCIOUS HuMoR.
Incongruities That Appeal to the Sense of the Ridiculous.

| Incongruities That Appeal to the Sense of the Ridiculous.
 Detroit Free Press.
 Nothing has added more to the mer- | riment of the world than the uninten- tional, unconscious humor of writers. public speakers and, in fact. all classes and conditions of men and women. And there is none so delightful. It far ex- ceeds in mirth provoking quality the cold blooded humor of the professional wits. We Americans are a fun loving people. and we must and will have our
 jollity. Some one has said with cer-
 tain truth: With all our vanity, en- ergy and unrest, we are not dull, cheerless people. Sour faced fellows, yellow and dyspeptic, are to be met with in our cars and on our streets,
 but they are not the type of the Amer
 ican, for he Is as ready for a laugh as for a speculation, as fond of joke as
 an office"
 And the joke is all the more enjoy
 able when 1t is spontaneous The
 greater the stress and strain of life the greater the need and demand for hu-
 nor, and no one depreciates the value
 of humor excepting those who have
 none of this good gift to their portion. Sunset Cox, one of the wittiest men of | his day, says in his book, Why We Laugh: "Eliminate from the litera- ture and conduct of any one people the | amusing and the amused faculty. and l you produce a sterility as dull and un- l interesting as the cinders and ashes of the volcanic fields of Iceland. But in- clude the amusing element within the ! experience and history of mankind, and | no description of luxuriance. with grape. olive, nectarine and orange, such
 as makes the wales of Portugal a per- ennial smile, Is adequate to emphasize | the contrast"
 One could not we'll instance a more
 amusing blunder than that In a paint | ing of the Blessed Virgin" in an old
 church in Spain. In this painting the Virgin Is represented as sitting on a
 red velvet sofa fondling a cat with one hand, while with the other she is pour | ing coffee from a silver coffee pot. This
 is as amusing as a painting in a Ger
 man church representing the sacrifice | of Isaac by Abraham. In this paint !f z Abraham is about to discharge a huge pistol at Isaac. when an angel descends and pours pitcher of water on the pan
 of the pistol, thereby saving Isaac. The writer once saw a crude painting of | King Herod with pair of spectacles painted on his nose. There is a very
 old painting of St. Peter denying the Saviour. and several of the Roman sol diers in the background have pipes in their mouths.
 Those who are on the lookout for
 them will find many amusing blunders
 in the daily papers and in periodicals of all kinds. It was only the other day that the writer saw Miss Fanny Crosby
 referred to in a religious paper as the
 author of so many blind poems" And it was a great metropolitan daily that one morning gave its readers the fol- lowing information regarding the
 wrecking of a ship the night before
 The captain swam ashore and succeed
 ed in saving the life of his wife. She
 was insured in the Northern Marine In-
 surance Company and carried a cargo of
 cement Equally amusing as an in stance of unconscious humor was the
 statement made by another paper re-
 garding the capsizing of boat at sea.
 It said that only one life was lost and
 that was found afterward.
 He must be sadly deficient in humor who does not find himself amused by a sign like the following, seen in the " Ddow of a shoemaker: Any re- spectable man, woman or child can have a fit in this shop" It was an contemplating furrier who placed a card in his window, stating that. for the benefit of the ladies, he would make ''muffs, boas. etc, out of their own skins"
 A prolific source of amusement to manuscript readers Is the surprising way in which aspirants for literary honor and glory often put things" We find one young woman saying of