Norwich bulletin., 1915-01-23
A GIFT TO PRIZE

Q PRIZE lI think. of in his excitement and fear was, "O:l, Lord, we thank Thee TOT that which we are about to recefve!.
 Dreadful and irreverent, isn't itf But it makes people laugh; and that is the motive which leads them to seek the movies the comedies, to buy joke books, to spend their last dime for a funny paper. Because people who have not been endowed by the fairies with the gift of saying funny things, Searn to read or near " nat t offers have, said or written which IS funny; and they will part with their last. red cent to find out.
 Sometimes. person will have a sudden fash of. hun1or. altaougn .l5s.o ga1, theoughout ordinary life he may De woodeny enough.
 A youth named Harry Jordan, with great fear for the result, took the e1- al11inations in a certain college not a thousand miles from here. His par ents were Etaid. pious persons and when he, learned that he had passed. he ,telegraphed this message to his fatfer:
 Hymn SSS. verse 5. last two lines. lSigned) Harry t Kae dHAtOu5 I3IEleE tuiIASO tO 4A4s hymn book and read the comforting &sorrow Yanqutshea, labor ended. Jordan passed"
 FIurnor. to be offective. must be tsponfa Heoue. There is nothing so de- pressing as to read or hear q made joke, in which the machinery fairly creaks.
 For instance. thie is what a min stre1 man told his audience:
 "A woman was shopping. and in- some toilet soap The girl asked business like, Scented or unscented 9 To which the customer replied. ''No; I'll carry it"
 Awful wasn't it?
 What this coveted gift means to many is demonstrated by the success of the professional l1urnorists, either as readers. writers, lecturers, poets or caricaturists. But their humor make 8 hit. although it may have been studied and led up to" in a dozen ways.
 And it must have certain basis which everybody can understand Mark Twain said, Be good-but you'n be ionesome!'' and the whole world laughed, because everybody saw the point.
 At farmhouse dinner, q city guest for whom the hostess had made many preparations, was appalled, to dis cover that an inquisitive fly had in consideraately and with i'll manners dropped into his glass of milk. Worst Of all, everybody else saw the fly Tie mans quick sense of hunlo1 saved the day. He took a spoon, res, cued the struggling fly. and remark cd. "As Shakespeare says. this qual-
 ity of skim milk is not strained!' It wasn't q very wise or VeTH ~e3ghtyr remark; but 1t made people
 laugh and tidcd the company ovel their embarrassment
 Perhaps there is nothing 50 funn, as tlts unoonsciens hun1or of tho child. spontaneous as it is. and quito 1 unstudied.
 < little gi1l who was making hel first visit to the beach, rising early came running into the cottage il great excitement, to tell her mother te come. and see! Breathiess, she ex. Dlained that there vas a trolley cal in bathing. When the elders accom- panied her to the piazza, they saw that during the night a house-boa ! had anchored in the offirg., Sometimes there is as much fun II the way person receives a bit O hun4or as there is in the joke itself 1 Up in the White Mountains, one sum naer, in 3. talk with Leland Powers the famed Iunlorist, I was amused by his narration of a little ipciden l in his experience.
 He had been invited to give one o 1 his n1onoiogues before a certain con gresation and during his stay in tn little town was the guest of the well 1 to-do deacon through whose effort he had been engaged Ik was a bit l ter cold right, the church parlor wa ] frigid and uncomfortable, so the hu 1 ll1orist eIerted himself to tell his fun ] niest stories, that he might repa. 1 the interest of the audience, many il | which had driven miles to attend tn 1 entertainment.
 Everybody there appeared intense , ly interested; but as the hour wor l on and he was letting off hurraorou l fireworks, he grew cold as the atmos 1 phore himself; for not one smile wa 1 visible on a single face, although 1 was evident that there were som ! press laughter.
 l When the entertainment was oNel 1 some Of the people waited to mee l him, and he was assured that the, 1 had had a first. class time. But g l he accompanied the deacon home. h 1 afraid your people didn't like me! i ''Oh, yes, they did' reassuringly re i sp9nded his host. "Eut they didn' laugh at me or my stories!" proteste l the funnyrnan. "LIauglli" srlorted th 1 deacon in indignation. -''Well,
 body bring here!" and the humoris
 THE pIcTAGRAPH.