The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-08-17
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
The Family Humorist.-2.

The Family Humor1st.-2.
Another pleasing trick Of the family
humorist is to flay his victim alive
with the lashes of ridicule, which hurt
| worse than the whip of scorpions of
tradition. Perhaps his wife is slow of
body and slow of mind. He is never
weary of haunting her with her heavi-
ness and dullness. Perhaps his wife
may be a foolish woman with fuddled
judgment. He stabs her with sarcastic
references to her Solomon like wisdom
and perspicacity. Perhaps his wife Is
an over anxious mother. He makes
even that sacred passion thing TO
laugh and sneer at.
Wife beating can go no further than
| this, for there is nothing that hurts
| like ridicule, nothing that We SO fear
and deead; nothing against which We
| are SO helpless to defend ourselves
The wife whose husband makes fun
| of her personal peculiarities, and
| grows sarcastic over her mistakes en-
vies the woman whose husband merely
beats her UP when he grows peevish
with her.
Another place where the family
| humorist simply scintillates is in teas
| ing children He delights in mimick-
| ing little Boobies pronunciation until
| little Bobbie grows perfectly insane
| with baffled rage. He thinks it is ex-
quisitely funny to reduce little Mary
| to tears, by pretending to steal her
dolly.
And he tells the things that little
Willie has told him in the deepest
confidence right before little Willie,
and the grown ups scream with laugh
ter and little Willie dies thousand
deaths of agony as his sensitive little
! soul shrivels up within him.
! How any human being can be cal
| lous enough to try to be funny at the
expense of helpless little child; how
anybody can be brutal enough to tor
ture child by teasing it for amuse-
ment, passes the comprehension OF any
save these,committed to the gospel of
frightfulness, but it is a common
| enough sport in the family circle.
| Father will hold little Johnnie up
| for the diversion of his friends with
no pity for little Johnnie's sufferings.
Mother will make her friends laugh
| by telling the secret that Mary whis-
pered to her of what little Tommie
Perkins said to her as they came home
from the school entertainment, with
out any pity for the torture she is put
ting Mary thru, and those humorous
| parents never dream that their i'll ad-
vised Jokes shut the door of their chill
| drer's confidence against them
The family humorist is also strong
! on personal defects. Strangers have
! the decency not to mention our af-
| flictions to us, but in the family circle
we feel that we are absolved from
handling each other with any human
consideration. 1t is ones own near
| relatives that dub the lame boy
| ".Limpy," and call the dull one SILLY
| Bill" and who brand the girl with
/ Titan locks RED Top" and the thin
one Bones" and the stout one
Fatty
1t doesn't take much wit to be
| funny at the expense of other peoples
| defects, or their misfortunes- 1t is
| easy enough to get a laugh at the
| expense of the poor cripple dragging
| grotesque movements, or at the poor.
meek, timorous little man. hen-pecked
within an inch of his life by his
| shrew of a wife, or at the big, fat.
| blousy, stupid girl who looks like a
| performing elephant when she tries
! to initiate the tricks by which cute
little kittenish girls ensnare the af-
| fections and get the attentions of
men.
The family humorist finds an in
| exhaustible source of mirth in other
peoples ambitions 1t is to laugh at
| him to hear of a boys aspirations to
| rise to high place, or a girls dream
| of being something more than ado
nestle drudge 1t is said that Ger
! vantes laughed SPANS chivalry away.
Certainly many parents have laughed
! their children's fame and fortune
away. because you can destroy energy
and paralyze effort quicker by ridi-
| Guile than in any other way.
I And the family humorist breaks up
matches by pointing out defects in q
/ youth or maiden that can be carica-
tured until they take away every