, 1922-11-30
GREAT jokes
Veteran QuipS That Undoubtedly
Are Centuries Old.
Having to Do With the Mother
n-law and the Intoxicated Man
Always Have Power to
Cause a Laugh.

Some n once said that there are
only two jokes in the world, the
runken man joke and the mother-in-
law Joke. There are many variations
of the two themes, many ways of pre-
senting the two supremacy comic fig
ures, but when we want to make each
other laugh we always go back either
TO TIE drunken man or to the moth
er-in-law.
The statement is an eXaggeration.
There are other jokes. The curate's
egg joke, for instance, which has
nothing to do either with drunkards
or mothers-in-law. Inc the more recent
better ole" joke. But 1t remains to
be seen whether either of these jokes
will survive, will amuse generation
after generation as the two great
jokes do. For the drunken man and
the mother-in-law are very old jokes.
They have proved their worth by pro-
vohing laughter for thousands of
years and they are still the most pop
ular jokes there are. A comedian inn
personating a drunkard is sure of his
laugh, and a public speaker. finding
his audience is getting bored, has only
to say the words "mother-in-law" to
provoke full-throated merriment.
OF TIE two the drunken man joke
seems to be the older. The %Spartans
knew 1t. and used to make slaves
drunk so hat their sons. laughing
heartily, might avoid the vice through
fear of ridicule. The Jews knew 1t.
TI,f, an,fant IEtn-nt,,,n T.. agan,,Iapl
poor in comedy. There are not half
a dozen jokes in the whole Old Tesla
ment, but the drunken man Joke is
there. Isaiah, a grim old puritan of
a statesman, made it, and made it in
an excellent form. The mother-ln-
law Joke is not so Did. but it goes Jack
to classical times.
We find ii in Tlutarch. "a man
once threw a stone at n dog and hit
his mother-in-law. Not such n bad
shot after all he said" That is Plut-
arch's version of TIE joke. It is so
neat and epigrammatic that the joke
itself mus have been old in his time.
He could scarcely have achieved such
perfect form unless he had been
working on a long familiar idea.
But ancient as these jokes are they
have lost none of their freshness for
us. Time, it appears, cannot stale
their infinite variety. We may fairly
suppose that tl.ey will last as long as
our race does. America may go dry,
but the great comic tradition of the
drunken man will survive.
The bolshevists may abolish mar
rf1ua hrrt man will a1N-ax We rapnnnhAr
what marriage was because they will
always laugh when anyone say
'mother-in-law." We may picture to
ourselves the last survivors of our
race shivering in icy caves while the
sun shoulders TO extinction. They will
nc doubt cheer TIE desperate hard
ship of their winter by |inventing fresh
quips about drunken men and moth
ers-in-law.
No other joke seems to possess his
quality of endurance. Indeed. the
path of uian's progress through the
ages is strewed with the corpses Of
dead jokes which once were vital
enough. but somehow missed immor-
tality. There is the doctor Joke. for
instance. The nncients knew il.
physician, heal myself" is II proven
bal form of II. The story of the med
ical n who went out hunting is an
other version Of II. To-day at least"
said IA friend who met him. you will
kill nothing" 1t survived down to the
middle of the last century. and even
In our own time G.. Il. Shaw has at
tempted to G%alvanize 1T into fresh lifA.
But the Joke is really dead, We no
longer laugh spontaneously ut the
thought of n doctor, though in its day
the doctor joke was certainly Il good
one.=Edinbnrgh Scotsman.