Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1913 — HONOR FOR OLD JOKES' [ARTICLE]

HONOR FOR OLD JOKES'

- \„ REALLY, HAVE THEY NOT A( GOOD CLAIM TO FRIENDSHIP? Old Books, , Old Wines, Old Friends? Held Up to Reverence, Why Not the Memory of Laughter of ' * Past Years? Why should we hall with such an. appreciative and sympathetic gusto to poetic sentiment, “Old books, old win* and old friends,” and yet hesitate to admit to that loving companionship “and old jokes?" Why should not thb crown of Immortality be openly placed upon the honored hero of an ancient anecdote? Why do we insist upon having our factious stories served like our buckwheat cakes, hot and fresh? Why do we sneeringly stigmatize a "twice-told” jest as a “chestnut” and a “bromide?” Why do we shun the companionship of the unfortunate wretch who repeats his stories? Why is such a repetition regarded as a certain symptom of senile dementia? Why has the name of “Joseph Miller" become a byword? - A man may repeat a thousand times a gem from Milton or Shakespeare, and society applauds his brilliancy, a writer in the Boston Herald asserts. Let him repeat an ancient bit of wit, and youth shakes its pitying head, and whispers, “He has fallen into anecdotage.” As the poet says, “There’s something more than natural in this if philosophy could find it out.” For a good joke is as immortal as a good book. Nay, it is a rarer gem. For there are very few jests of the first order of the world. But whenever you find an anecdote redolent with the exquisite aroma of true comedy, you will almost always find, after chemical analysis, that it is an old friend in a new disguise. Old jokes, like rare old masters, are being constantly restored for the joy of an unfamiliar age. We are laughing today oyer jests that shook the sides of Shakespeare and rare Ben Johnson; nay, that wrinkled the face of jolly Aristophanes; and have come to us as precious heirlooms through Rabelais and Boccaccio. The very humorous journals that despise the “chestnut” and the “bromide” are serving us in the interstices stories, disguised in modern Blang, that are centuries old. A very acute observer has confidently asserted that there are only seven original funny stories in the world. The whole brood of modern witticisms spring from those few progenitors. Another common trick of the joke mechanics Is to take a story and foster it upon tome individual who “has secured a passing reputation for humor. ' The higher critics say that Solomon did not compose the book of Proverbs. He established a local reputation and every obscure fellow in the kingdom who wanted to float his scanty stock of wisdom put the king's label on it. And the modern/ funny man takes an ancient joke and saddles it upon Lincoln, Read, Depew or Mark Twain. . Our genial philosopher, Mr. Dooley, says: “The last man that makes a Joke owns it” Now, as the scripture says, “These things ought not to be." Why should these royal and Imperial jokes be disowned, stripped of their kingly robes, and sneaked in through the back door of modern life? What crown jewels could equal in preciousness one of these original seven £ems of mirth, that were born when the world was young? Why should we not honor the bid men who can recall the imperishable jests that filled the vanished with “unextlngulshable laughter?” Let us add to the joyous trinity of old books, wine and friends the sweet companionship of old stories.