The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-08-16
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman wrftsr.
The Family Humorist.-i.

No one will deny that humor is the
salt that savors life. There are SO
many things over which we must eth
ter for US individually and so much
pleasanter for those with whom we
come in contact, for US to guffaw in
stead OF howl.
Especially is this true OF family life.
Humor is the oil upon the troubled
waters of domesticity. So far as the
happines S of a household is concerned,
it is better for the husband to be able
to make jokes when things go amiss
than 1t is for him to be able to make
millions, while in retaining a hus-
bands affections and keeping him
strong in the belief that he has mar
ried the Right One, it availeth. a
woman more to have a funny bone
than it does to have a Grecian profile.
Lucky is the man who, when he
stumbles off of the straight and mar
row path for an inch or two, once in a
blue moon, has a. wife who rallies him
good naturally about being a rounder,
and applies ice cloths to his aching
brow, instead of one who sees nothing
grotesque or amusing in a staid old
pillow horse kicking up his heels oc-
casionally and trying to jump the pas
Lucky is the wife possessing a hus-
band who finds her arithmetic a per-
petual source of amusement, and who
laughs at her on the first of the month
for not being able to make her allow
ance hold out, instead of reading the
riot act to her. ,..=.. ~
Lucky the children whose parents
1aughAinstead of spank, and who think
it funny Ovhen Johnnie shaves the cat
with papa's safety razor, and when
best evening dress down the street.
playing lady, instead of having a
father and mother who consider these
youthful peccadilloes evidences of the
truth of the doctrine of the total de-
pravity of infants.
Undoubtedly the ability to turn the
Home Page into a Comic Supplement
does much to make the family circle
a pleasant place in which to live, but
sense of fun is like a good many
other things in the world. 1t is de-
sirable only in the right place and
time and with the correct application.
And the most pestiferous pest on
earth is the family humorist whu
sharpens his wits on the peculiarities
and weaknesses of those of his own
household. and makes their foib1es and
mistakes a peg on which to hang his
cruel jokes.
He is the man who makes a Roman
holiday by holding his wife up to
ridicule. All of his choicest batch OF
humorous anecdotes center around
some silly blunder his wife has made
, or some weakness that she possesses.
! Mostly they have to do with her not
knowing which is the business end OF
a check, and of thinking that she still
has money in the bank as long a S she
| has blank checks in her book. OK
they deal with her efforts to econo-
mize by selling a seventy-five dollar
suit of clothes for seventy-five cents
| to the garbage man: or the panic
she got into when she thought the
baby was lost, or they hinge upon
some secret of her toilet, her age, OF
| the fact that she is named Matilda iu-
stead of Mazda.
We all know men whose whole
| stock-in-trade of merry jests are jokes
| of which their wives are the butts We
| have all sat at dinner tables and pre-
, tended to be amused and simply achcd
| to throttle the men who were willing
to make their wives figures of fun te
| get a laugh, while the poor woman
! listened with quivering lips aud tear
| filled eyes, trying to be sports and to
look as IL they enjoyed being TAM
| pooned and guffawed at