Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-02

''humOr OF New Ork crowns Is uiStihSt-
ly not American.
The two millions and more OF sure
enough Americans who came here to see
the Hudson-Fulton celebration were good
humored enough when they got here.
They were prepared for American fun.
But they were by no means In training
for the New York brand of fun And
that's the reason the caldron OF dtscord
and discomfort has been boiling over In
this town for q week or SO. The Amer
leans here present to witness the festivi-
ties haven't been disposed to accept the
manifestations of "humor'' on the part
OF the New York hoodlum element. COM
posed mainly of foreigners of the first and
second breeds. The Americans have
bucked hard over the ''comicar' rough
stuff of the Manhattan breed Of funnyists.
Occasionally their bucking has been of
avail; generally, however, 1t has been
worse than futile.
The Continental by which / mean the
the inflictioH OF discomfort, misery or
pain upon others. The slogan of the
raffish funmakers of this town for many
years has been: Lets hurt somebody"
IL nobody Is made wretched. then the
games no fun.
Let US take the confetti-throwing bust
ness as a starter. At this hour OF writ
ing the festive streets of New York are
more than ankle-deep in confetti. 1t will
take the street cleaning department Of
this town fully a week after the whole
blowout lie over to clear the downtown
streets of the messy confetti. You ought
to listen to the purplish language en-
ployed by big "Bill' Edwards, the former
foot ball star of Princeton. who has clear
ly proven himself to be close to the best
head OF the street cleaning department
New York ever had, when he surveys the
miles and miles Of soggy confetti. Mr..
Edwards 10 an agreeable and mild man
nered young man. but the unnecessary
confetti very naturally gets his profess
sional goat as a street cleaner
The United States OF America got along
very we'll indeed without any confetti
whatever for considerably more than a
hundred years. Confetti was introduced
into this country by way of New Orleans,
at the Mardi Gras. and next by way of
New York about dozen years ago. In
New Orleans the confetti-throwing habit
was harmless enough. even IL it was an
moving In New York the confetti gag has
been nothing short of an outrage for some
several years. The oldfashioned idea of
using confetti was to toss 1t at a group.
a party. crowd for general results. The
New York idea Of using confetti is some
thing entirely different In New York the
confetti is used mainly by toughs. who
are keen to start something" Their
idea of getting 3he largest imaginable
amount of FUN" out of confetti is TO
chuck a fsfuI Of 1t smack-dab into
woman's eyes at a range of about four
inches Confetti isn't particularly good
for the human eye. Pieces OF the some
times poisonousy colored paper get into
the eye when 1t is funnily thrown In this
way at close range, and they're pretty
hard to get out. The eyes are generally
pretty badly inflamed If the sight of the
eyes ID not actually endangered. The
woman who is thus staked to the confetti
treatment by the New York DULLES is
supposed to exhibit the proper carnival
spirit by laughing gleefully over 1t, thus
inviting further close-range fire Of con-
fetti. In New York the women have been
so trained by experiences with roughs
among New York crowds on festive occa-
sions that they don't resent this sort OF
thing. simply because they're afraid to.
They don't want to get their escorts IN
volved In rough and-tumble fights with
the hoodlums.
But the women from other towns and