University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1909-02-18


So it is i'm one way: not so much
so otherwise Many Others still sup
pose that editors of humorous Jour
mails have but to skim the whipped
cream from each mornings mail, ship
the stale jokes back to the authors who
perpetrated them. send the good ones
down to the composing room and the
trick is done.
While it is true that occasionally
live. husky joke is captured in this
way. where one is found half a hun
are wormy. old and moth eaten or
smell high of camphOr from having
been packed away all winter, as sum-
mcr jokes often are by mercenary au-
thOrs; left-overs. which they will not
take the trouble to read and touch up
to date are springing them on an un-
suspecting manuscript reader. This
sort of joke material lacks snap in pre-
cisely the same manner as does case
of last seasons fire crackers; they ex-
plode with that tired feeling.
Anybody can write a joke. As soon
as You have thought of Your joke get
a piece OF paper and set it down. OF
course it is much more difficult to
think of jokes than to write them, but
once they have occurred to YOU, if
You can dispense reasonably good
English, the rest is easy. 1t takes Il
genius. though, to give down a con-
tinuous joke supply winter and sum-
mer and i'm all kinds of weather.
But to those who do not joke spon-
taneousy there is method within
easy reach of all-that of reasoning
them ont by pure deduction. For in
stance:
Suppose that You read in the paper
that Mark Twain, passing the after
noon with Edward ~. Rex. hands him
a bagsy old cucumber like this: There
was a certain locality much pestered
with cut-worms,. but with the coming
of the birds their numbers greatly di-
minished. The sparrows at length
constituted nuisance of themselves.
some folks thought more so than the
caterpillars. One day the teacher asked
little Johnny which he thought were
the worse, the sparrOws or the worms.
Johnny replied that he could not tell,
as he had never had the sparrows that
he remembered Of"
This idea is capable of great varia-
tion. and the amateur jokist should be
able to evolve an entire series OF witty
stories from it. For example. think
OF all the animals You can. birds. dogs.
eats. finally You come To bees The bee
Is not a quadruped. it i true. but the
game Joki>t who is working for a repu-
tatIon does not allow subtletie, to OBJ
scllre his sense of hum"r. You have
caught Your bee. proceed To make IA Joke
OF him. When completed Your story.
modelled after the sparrow form. will
read something like this
In one ncighborhood there were
many wild bees. and farmer tried to
coax swarm into IL hive he had built
and capture them. and To assist him he
hired little Johnny. In setting up the
hives the farmer got lot of >livers
IN his hands. which caused him to in
dul@e in some eNplctive>. But when
he attempted to brush the last Of the
swarm into the box they >tung his
hands even worse than the >plintcrs had
done As he stopped to pull ont the
>tin"S he remarked to his helper. 4
think the bees are a great deal worse
than the hives. don't YOU. Jack
don't know. sir replied Johnny,
i never had the becs.'''
\ Joke Of this description will read
lily sell to any editor for thirty or
forty cents. and it doesn't take long
to write IL