Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1893 — Unintentionally Funny. [ARTICLE]

Unintentionally Funny.

The making of jokes has come to he a recognized trade, but it is still true that the funniest things are those that are said unintentionally, especially by men who feel it their mission .to be eloquent. The New York Tribune brings together a few specimens of that peculiar form of ridiculous speech knows as anti-cli-max. It prevails in India among all classes, but is especially resorted to by natives who have occasion to petition Europeans for favors. Thus such a man will say: “Will the Presence, whose reputation for justice is known from the East to the West aDd whose countenance spreads joy among His inferiors, who are as the sands of the seashore, in number, graciously deign to take but an instant’s notice of him who has the delicious honor to name himself one of the most unworthy among the servants of the Protector of the Poor; and will the favorite son of the Lord of the Universe magnanimously overlook my amazing presumption in asking him for the payment of a bill of two annas for henfeed?”

The same thing is not unknown in the United States. A Florida police justice was trying to impress upon a prisoner who was to testify in his own behalf the solemn nature of an oath. Assuming the most pompous toDe he thus addressed him: “Prisoner at the bar! In taking this solemn oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, take care that you do not allow yourself to he tempted to commit a willful perjury. Remember that the eye of an all-see-ing Providence and the village, constable are upon you.” Another judge, in a rough and ready but ambitious frontier town, had occasion, or thought he had, to comment severely upon the heinous crime of horse-stealing, and thundered forth: “For century after century that dread command, ‘Thou sbalt not steal,’ has rolled along the ages. It is, moreover, a standing rule of this court, if not yet a by-law of our progressive and soon-to-he-incorporated city!" Ludicrous deliverances of a similar sort are common in advertisements, especially in those of a personal nature. Here is-one that appeared not long ago in a New York paper; “Willie, return to your distracted wife and frantic children! Do you want to hear of your old mother’s suicide? You will if you do not let us know where you are. Anyway, send back your father’s colored meerschaum.”