The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-01-25
Mother-in-Law Souvenir.

ga OTHERS-IN-LAW have existed for
V some time. AZ to the period at
which they began to furnish a field
for jocular effort we have not been in
formed, But it has remained for Wal
ter H. Wright. $40 Murray avenue, Mil
waukee, to compile d book composed
entirely Of jokes on your w1fe's mother
For thirty-one years, ever since his
married life began, Mr.. Wright has
kept a scrapbook, in which he has
placed all the heartfelt and heartless.
thoughtful and thoughtless, soulful and
eoulless, newspaper jibes about the
touchy subject, on which he could lay
his hands. His friends, and his friends
friends have helped the work along,
until now the clippings number 1000
To say that the book is interesting is
putting ii mildly. The best part of it
Is that the author of the fad is on the
best of terms with his mOther-in-lax,
who is reeiprooaliy proud of the per
petrator.
Perhaps the original mother-in-law
joke Is one Of the best to be found in
the collection. The classics have it
that young Agonistes and his spouse,
walking one evening under the blue
sky OF Athens, upon the hill Of Aero
polls, stumbled over a small fragment
of broken marble from q fallen column.
Provoked by the occurrence, he picked
II up and threw il at a she wolf that
was near at hand, but missed his OBJ
jet and hit his mother-in-law. and i'm
mediately exclaimed, Not So bad
The brightest of minds, the biggest
fUnmakers Of the day. as well as the
keenest analysts OF men and motives,
seem not to have thought It beneath
them to take whiTl at the game, ac-
cOrding 10 Mr.. Wright's collection. The
lamented Bill Nye, for instance, waxed
melancholy in his iDimitable vein over
the woes Of an imaginary case.
Bob" Burdette turns the tables on
the usual order of things in an adroit
and not unpleasing fashion in a poem
captioned MY Son-in-Law,' which
runs on this wise:
Who is it wooes my daughter long
Who breaks my rest with midnight song:
And as the seasons slowly roll.
Burns yards Of gas and tons OF coal,
Ny son-in7law.
Mr.. Burdette. however, with judicial
fairness, and not unmindful that there
is another side 10 the coin, in another
effusion says:
After man has been married
about eight or ten years and has
learned to send his wife and the child
ren to stay through the hot months
with her mother every summer, he
learns, among other things, mat:
she knOWeth how to distinguish the
real spring chicken of this age from
the car-spring chicken manufactured
by the American Rubber company.
She fndeth the sand in the sugar.
yea, also, she sayeth unto the grocer
thai when she wants ChicOry she know
eth what to ask for,
''She lOoketh the milkman in the eye
and telleth him that he ought to run
his sprinkling cart and milk wagon on
different days.
There never was but one home es-
tablisned without a mother-in-law, and
that seems to have been a mistake.
The recently deceased Max O'Rell
dared to wax facetioUs in squib on
How TO Deal With Your M0ther-in-
Law He suspected, too. that in
America. as well as in France, men are
in leading strings. and the women
leaders. Was II not in America" he
asked, that I heard the story of a
man Who enjoyed the possession of a
beautiful and loving young wife and
a very Uncongenial mother-in-law? The
latter fell i'll and her daughter went TO
nurse her One day the husband re-
ceived the following telegram.
q" Mother dead; shall we have her
embalmed, cremated or buried?'
The husband wired back:
- DO the three; take no chances
O'Rell quoted Sardou. who says in
'-SeTaphine": IT ever you have
chance to choose between living with
your mother-in-law and shooting your
self. do not hesitate a single moment
shoot her.
Marian Harland finds d lesson to be
learned from China, where a woman
does not attain her summit of infiu-
ence till she becomes a mother-in-laN-.
The reader VIII doubtless have felt
ere,tnis Hood of righteous Indignation
yelling up in his soul at the thought
that. amid all this torrent Of Calumny.
not one genius, not one lone funmaker,
had dared TO lift up his voice in de-
Tense of the much-abused mOther-in-
law. Not so, Edgar Fawcett. with IA
Gle pen, is one Of the many who fly
to her defense. 'sThe amount OF shame
full abuse heaped on these poor beings,
he declares, would amaze an expert
statisticisa Of social abuses. We story
writer's. it is observed, must study life
or perish. And the more one studies
the mother-in-law the more he finds
that she has been heartle-siy tradueed.
She is. indeed for the most part. a vic
tim Of the son-in-laW. who himself is
often an insupDort able creature. Per
petually assailsd by httle caustic jibes
and sneers, grim resentment grows with
her d second nature. She IS probably
the most merciiegsiy assa.led member
of our complex and so-called Christian
society.
Twere to gorge ones self in a palace
Of sweets to rehearse all the bright
sayings with which Mr.. Wright's book
is replete But here are a few of the
best the better for their outrageous
absurdity,
Client (Who bag been indicted for
murderl-TfoW would the insanity de-
tense EO2
Criminal lawyer lastonished)- w hat2
For killing a mOther-in-law2 Never
Editor-You seem TO have given up
the mother-in-law Jokes, and you used
II be so successful at them. How do
you account for it2
joke Writer-Ive SGT enc now.