The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-05-26
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

the preachers were better raconteurs than either the lawyers or editors, and have been called upon to make good by giving more details about the wit pulled by them during the Kiwanis meet.
 Now, a joke either gets over or falls flat in the way it is told, and therefore I am at a disadvantage in substantia- ting my claim; but if could create the atmosphere in which they were born and put on paper the play of the faces, the tones of the voice, and the gesture of the tellers at Bayview. I am sure no one would convict me of partiality towards the ministry.
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 Then yarn spins we'll at one time and getr all tangled up at another. know this from personal experience, for some of my oldest chestnuts which crackle loudest in the country make no noise in town; while some of my newest are heard in deepest silence out in the sticks" but get a good hand when reeled off in the city.
 Every speaker will know what l am trying to say, just as every actor is constantly puzzled at the differing way in which his act goes in the various quently happens that an act which calls forth loud applause at an afternoon performance will fail to get curtain call in the evening, fot the matinee crowd is entirely different from the night one. |,
 It really takes an expert in crowd psycology to be able to tell when to spring a joke. In far different sense this ability to know when con- gregation was ready for message was one of the secrets of the success of Dwight l.. Moody, who would never preach until his audience was in tune for his sermon through the gospel sing ing of the gifted Sankey, or other song leaders.
 Now, the dinner given to the Rota- rians by the Kiwanians at the Tutwiler was enlivened by the wit of two dis Canadian and the other southerner, but both showed that they were mas ters of assemblies and able to take ampe care of themselves wherever English is spoken and humor is appre- ciated
 The Canadian, Captain Jenkins, led off with a good card story which M he -laid on the 7-year-old son of afBaptist preached. It was the way in which he trimmed and dressed it that brought down the dinner gang. It's too long to be set down here, and not being famil- far with cards, might get the hands mixed up, or in any event, if I didn't, be charged with knowing too much about them for a preacher.
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 It was the Presbyterian preacher from Houston with the Irish face and Jewish name. one of the tribe of Jacob
 
 the scalp of the president of the Rotary club. Now, Morris Bush. may not be 8 "big chief',s like Mercer Barnett. but he is to the 4Rotes" all that Mercer is tt the Kiwanians, and then some, for ht is our idol.
 Now, the Jacobite from Texas seemed ekl. fx~ L- 7 face of any man. for in the midst oi his speech, in which he was 'joshing' the Rotarians. he gave us the shock oi our lives. In spite of the fact thai Mary Pickford" Bnsh, as he was low ingly called at public meeting, is the Adonis and Beaux Brummel of Rotary standing for manly pulchritude, Jacob. had the temerity to pronounce him tht usliest man he had ever looked upon Indignation broke loose in our ranks ndaseverar debutantes in the mezzanin, floor tainted.
 Being guest. the hands of thu ever-ready Morris were tied, but VI knew that he would lay for the TexaI at the barbecue. He did So and did i well, but the Houstonite had a com, back. "Mawruss,' in introducing him took occasion to play foot ball with hin and intimated that 1t was only hi Christian spirit which made him for bear in giving him knock out kick. I was then that Jacobs kicked goal, fo |, aUS of tI Birmingham Rotary club had my nam coupled to his face, he couldn't pass fo a Gentile anywhere in the old U. s. A. pr. Edmonds, who had. spoken, re fused to joke on an empty stomach, a he had arrived after the barbecue ha been served This caused him to b | barbecued meats. He still was ayers l to spinning a yarn, as he had been de nied the privilege of drinking slas of buttermilk and was dry. Thi I brought him two cases of the milk fluid. But if he wasn't in the humor t joke, it did not keep Drs. Jacobs an McNeill from joking about him.
 Now. as Henry M. Edmonds is m personal friend and Rotarian brothe and the shepherd of local flock, al
 not to tell here the insinuating but nc
 discriminating Story which pr. Jacot made out of the whole wool and trie I to fasten the hide on our chaplain. Bl must record the saying of the re: