Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1909-01-11
WRITE SOMETHING
FUNNY; MAKES
BIG MONEY
Publishers FALL EASY
PREY TO JOKESMITH
Business of Discovering Hum
orouS Talent Very Serious
Affair." The HumoriSt Who
Fooled Mark Twain.

,s.ec;al Correspondence to Morning Journail
poston Dec. 31.-The rarest thing
a. thn world, as everybody knows who
knovs ANYTHING about the literary
markets, is a new joke. The next rar-
80 * an old joke 50 revamped h a 1t
looks new. The liveliest hunt among
nubiishers of books and magazines
today is for real humor.
DSee that drawer" observed the
editor of a big New York weekly to
an aspirant for literary honors who
IN sure he could write the right
stnff if he only knew wat the editor
wanted. Nearly empty. isn't it?
That's my humor drawer. Any one
who can help me to fill it is persona
grata in this office
The editor. like every other, had
discovered how rare genuinely funny
writing is. TO discover the humorous
hooks with which the Christmas
bookstalls are stocked and the humor-
Gus articles which now and then oc-
eur in the magazines, is the publish
ers most serious occupation. Any
thing that contains a laugh a line is
received gleefully in the editorial Of
fees Of half a hundred American pub
fishing houses.
BUN StllOOlS VI Aiilti iOdH hulllOA
are in favor. Anybody who can be
either broadly or d~elicately witty finds
a hearing these days-as well as many
who think they are able to be either
and actually are neither.
The distinction between the subtle
and the obvious groups of humorists
was amusingly traced in a recent Har-
ward Phi Beta Kappa a~fter-dinner
speech which, introduced to the learn
ed society Rcv. Samuel M. Crothers.
a publishers "find"-a Unitarian
clergyman known mostly not so long
ago as President Eliot's pastor, but
now duly qualified as IA literary u C
cessor Of oliver Wendell Holmes, who
is expected to produce something
bright whenever he touches typewrit-
or 20 paper.
The point was made in this address
that most American humorists have
belonged very clearly TO one or the
other Of these schools; and %consulta-
ton of such a manuel as THE Early
American Humorists." a handy refer
ence book that gives selections from
the writings of many, who, famous in
their own day, are now in too great
danger Of being forgotten. discloses !
pretty clearly On the one side the iok- (
ers who had buffoon gifts like AR
temus Ward "Orpheus s.. Kerr"
'Bil Arp" Josh Billings" Petrol
cum V. Nasty" and the "Danbury
Man" and on the other side the
literary wits like Washington Irving,
George William Curtis and N. p. Will
lf, whose quit humor more closely
resemblcd that of the great English
writer's Of the eighteenth century. The
discoveries of humorists by publishers
IN the last few years have not been
50 numerous. and many of them have
Deen disapl nt ITS because the
Writer who ted in by being
uproariously ten c%oncciyes an
ilea OF reforming me world through
ms humOr and thereafter becomes
deadly duh. This tendency IF the
Jester to aim to be a preacher has
Deen very apparent in the history of
humor.
Just as DR.. Crothers is perhaps the
most valuable recent discovery among
men who write. a woman whose hui
morVus powers were quite unsuspect-
va up 10 a short time ago, outside of
d Vrcie OF personal acquaintance, has
Vome TO the fore. The literary world
!, !, sun laughing over the failure of
MARX Twain, himself the worlds Lead
Luz numorist. to recognize a profess
.lohal hand in the first OF the Let
OF Jennie Allene." which Miss
ordce Donworth, a Providence wom-
wrote as a practical joke.
me story is that while some good ,
laules of a san Francisco relief com
lite OF tho Rhode Island capital
engaged in asserting and pack
'ss ciothlng sent to them for the ben S
~" oi victims of the earthquake and q
Nv one Of their number received "A
UT signed Jennie Allen which ,
tugsled that a certain garment
ou'u DC returned to her, since il had .
LII forwarded by mistake. The !
n phrasing of the COM I