Year: 1875

1


Not only is the susceptibility of humor


different among different nations, but


the humorous objects differ by reason of


different customs and habits There is


nothing very laughable to us in the


manner which we at our hotels and rail-


road depots gobble down our food, but
even an Arab or a Chinese would laugh
at the operation il we did not. Yet it is
ludicrous to us to see an Arab lady pick
out the choice tidbits with which you
had loaded your plate, or roll little
ball of hash in her dainty fingers, and
by way of especially hOnoring you, plug
your mouth with it Unexpectedly; or to
see Chinese with his chopsticks load
himself up with boiled rice, and ram it
down as we would wad in a gun! 1t
is said that the ladies under the domin-
ion of the Grand Lama, when good
looking, disfgure their faces to preserve
them from vanity. / have never seen
that recorded Of our ladies' Heaven
forbid! The idea, however, is as ludi-
crous as the Tartar custom OF pulling a
man by the ear when they want him to
drink, and keep pulling till he opens his
mouth, when they pour down the liquor.
L
to be pulled.


There is nothing very laughable to an
American in the shaking of hands, which
is everywhere practiced in our country;
but foreigners find in it much amuse-
ment. Yet nothing can be more ridicu-
lous to us than~the salutation in Ger
many, where one may see two big, burly,
hairy men rush to each others embrace,
and kiss with schoolgirl fervency The
people of Thibet salute by lolling out
the tongue and scratching the right ear,
and the Esquimaux by rubbing their
noses with their thumb and describing a
comic section in the air with their fin
gers-a custom practiced by mischievous
urchins in our land, but not exactly as
salutatory grace. tits now happily hon
ored in the breach. In Turkey an Amer
lean travelling with his unveiled wife,
even without the appendages, so usual
here, of six small children and seven
large trunks and bandboxes, is to them
in funny predicament. On the other
hand what would be funny with U.S.
among the Turks is quite the reverse.
An American gives us an instance in
his experience in Syria. He was about
to mount his mule among crowd of
Oriental visitors, and wished to give
them an exaggerated idea of American
agility. He jumped little too far, and
Overshot the mark coming down on the
other side like a diver, with his hands
and nose in the mud, his feet caught in
the saddle, and his coat skirts cleverly
rolled over his head to screen him from
what he supposed was a laughing crowd.
Yet not soul smiled, not a sound was
heard save the tender grunt of sympathy
and demure offers of aid. Now, Turk
in America, with baggy breeches and
turbaned head, taking leap over mule
in the streets of an American city, and
getting stuck upside down, with his pro-
boscis in a rut and his heels in the saddle,
would be saluted with something more
than a grunt of sympathy and demure
offers of aid. We have more humor
than dignity; the Turks more dignity
than humor. There never was an Amer
lean who would not sacrifice his courtesy
and sympathy to his fun. He must have
it, however, well seasoned, and done in
hurry, and Its prevailing characteristic
must be exaggeratiOn. You saw this
illustrated even in the inordinate hopes
of so calm and sedate statesman as Mr..
Seward, as to the closing up of our late
civil war in sixty days. That was the
huge joke of our time. There was
court in General Grants army which
sentenced man to work ten years OH
General Buffers Dutch Gap Canal; and
it was generally said, if not believed, in
the army, that Palmer, who made the
patent limbs, had purchased two thou
sand acres of Western land, and planted
them with locust and maple, with view
to economize in the future in his manu-
facture of arms and legs.