New-York tribune., 1910-02-19
HUMOR UP TO DATE
LAUGHING BY NOTE.
Professor Kleiser and His
Class ON Exhibition.

The entertainment took a promising turn
as soon as the humorists took their seats
on the platform They had volunteered 10
teli humorous stories, tersely, to an auui-
ehce al the West Side branch of the Young
Men Christian Association last night.
Iney had come with the deliberate inteh-
uon OF being funny, and even before
Woro was spoken all doubt that they would
be much funnier than they had expected
was dissipafed. Professor Grenvllie
kielser, in charge of the development OF
thelr latent powers to amuse, was no
small success himself. But his sad-eyeo
students OF the humorous anecdote hao
everything in their favor Their appear
ance aided them. To see them was TO De
placed IN a receptive mood
1t was a little difficult al the outset 10
understand the professors reasons for ask
ing the public speaking class 70 arse anu
go through the laughing exercises on page
so OF kleisers handbook. This was done IN
methodical manner. care being taken 10
exercise all of the muscles that properly
conducted laugh was said to influence 1t
was done by note and sounded like groan
on a sliding scale, but the professor pro-
nounced II a good laugh and very encour-
aging to him indeed The amateur CoHedi-
ans took the place Of the printed exercises
q little later on and the handbook was for
gotten. There was still a times reui-
niscence of the groaning feature, but for
the most part the laughter of the audience
was entirely natural, the stories we're SO
bad. Twenty-Five long and short story tell
ers recited their offerings Accident might
have been expected to De the means of one
crisp new incident being related. Not an
accident crept in last night, however
The men went to the stage in relays. II
any one of them were to go on the profes-
sional stage and would give imitation Of
himself he would suit metropolitan theatre
goers. The funniest thing about them was
their unconsciousness Of the fact that they
had no sense of hUnor. After the first
seven speakers had again taken their seats
among the audience Professor Kleiser said:
7 would avoid, as a usual thing, gentle
men telling to mixed audience stories
having for their sole points the presence Of
flies in coffee or hair in butter: they are
very disagreeable subjects TO most per-
sons And. also. please omit barroom
stories; several of them have been inflicted
on Us tonight This is a temperance audi
ence- The next man will now speak, please.
I hope yours is not pertaining to a board
ing house.
who got into an argument with a police
man. Before he finished the bell rang-the
bell rang at the end of q minute
How many would like to hear the end
of that story" asked the professor. There
being no takers. the man retired.
Wouldn't it be wise to have some one
appointed TO have a hook handy?" asked a
red-faced man in the front row The audi
ence was sympathetic with regard TO the
proposition, but the professor grew stern.
Professor Kleiser regretted the vintage
Of the anecdotes and the thorough way
that the points in the worlds most popular
stories We're obscured. He promised to
talk to the class about the advisability of
the point of any story, whether funny or
otherwise. being shown TO the audience If
only for a brief time That is what had
made the anecdotes they had rnauled re-
spectacle all these years, he said They
should be tender in their handling of the
points, of course. because of their vener-
able age, but it was certainly much easier
to laugh at joke If the thing that made
the joke funny wasn't entirely mislaid-
The class knows all about laughing, and
the professor said that he was going TO
make them able TO produce a laugh by
some means other than their mere appear
anCe on q platform, if 1t took all summer.