Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1891 — Selling Jokes to Barbers. [ARTICLE]

Selling Jokes to Barbers.

John Smith toils the Buffalo Express that there is a professional humorist iu New York who finds a novel place to market his jokes. lie sells a largo hatch every day to the proprietor of one of the down-town barber-shops. The proprietor makes his barbers learn them and retail them in their conversations with customers. The inventor of,the plan says it works much better than tiie ordinary method of letting the barbers depend on their own conversational abilities. In spite of till that is said, every barber knows that one of tho first essentials for attracting custom is to bo able to amuse the customer while shaving him. .Timeworn almanac jokes and even those stolen from tho current numbers of comic papers will not answer iu the hustling age. Customers demand something new and fresh. Harbors who can invent theirown stories are rare. Therefore tho metropolitan proprietor hit on the plan of buying them in the regular market. Ho pays his humorist a fixed salary, which is larger than the funny man could get by selling tho product of ids wit to newspapers, and no jokes tiro rejected, as the demand is unlimited and the standard of excellence not very high.